Neferata

THIRTEEN




The City of Sartosa

(–1146 Imperial Reckoning)

The spear licked out, its blade surmounted by a halo of dust and smoke. Neferata barely brought her sword up in time, driving the spear-point into the mast behind her. It hammered home, cracking wood. The crack widened as the spear was jerked free by its wielder.

The druchii hissed and lunged again, his lean body driving the spear towards her belly with inhuman speed. Neferata caught the haft, just below the blade, and guided it around her even as her sword came up and pierced the druchii’s side. The elf bucked in agony and Neferata ripped her sword free, letting her opponent fall.

Neferata stepped over the body and looked out over the deck. The port of Sartosa was aflame as the druchii raiders ravaged the city, looking for loot and slaves. More of the pale, black-eyed elves charged across the deck towards her. They had butchered the remaining crew easily, but were finding Neferata and her handmaidens to be an altogether tougher breed of opponent. She had faced the creatures before, in the Shark Straits. They raided the coasts of Araby with depressing regularity and had taken a number of vessels that she considered hers. She considered this to be a form of belated justice.

A white-haired elf woman ran towards Neferata, shrieking in what might have been delight. Curved blades connected with Neferata’s sword, the force of the blow nearly knocking her from her feet. The elf spat something in her own liquid tongue and Neferata responded by shoving aside her opponent’s swords and lunging, snake-swift, to clamp her jaws on the elf’s throat. She was careful not to gulp down the blood that burst into her mouth, having seen the effects it had had on one of her handmaidens who hadn’t been so cautious. The vampire had collapsed as if drugged, and had yet to awaken.

Neferata tossed her head, ripping the elf’s throat out. The elf slumped, clutching at the spurting hole in her jugular. Neferata spat out what was in her mouth and shoved the dying elf to the side. The others, clad in scaly cloaks and dark armour, hesitated. Neferata smiled, blood staining her face. ‘Kill them for me, my sweets,’ she spat.

The ghouls burst out of the open hold behind the elves, their slimy paws tangling in the cloaks and their talons hooking the ornate armour. The druchii turned on this new threat with remarkable aplomb, but surprise and numbers were on the ghouls’ side. The struggling elves were either torn apart there or they were pulled into the dank hold, to be devoured alive if she judged their screams correctly. The ghouls were hungry, having had little to eat beyond rats or the cast-off members of the crew once Neferata and her followers had finished with them.

The screams of the druchii ringing in her ears, she found her gaze sliding east, where distant mountains climbed into the clouds. In the tongue of the Sartosans, they were the ‘Mountains-at-World’s-End’. Something seemed to flash between those distant peaks and she felt a jolt. It had merely been a reflection from the fire off the water, she thought.

Yes, just a reflection.

Nonetheless, she continued to stare and before her astonished eyes, a vast black cloud seemed to rise up from the mountains, as if a flock of birds had suddenly taken flight. For a moment, the cloud seemed to take the form of a man – no, not a man, something worse. And then it was gone and it was once again just a reflection and Neferata turned back to the slaughter to drown her misgivings in blood…

The City of Mourkain

(–327 Imperial Reckoning)

Neferata stalked through the hall towards the audience chamber. Naaima raced after her, fighting to keep up. ‘Neferata, wait!’ the latter cried out. ‘You mustn’t do this! It’s over!’

Neferata stopped and spun, grabbing Naaima’s throat. ‘Understand me when I say this, Naaima, I say when it’s over! No one else,’ Neferata snarled.

‘Abhorash is mobilising what remains of Mourkain’s military,’ Naaima said, grabbing her mistress’s wrist. ‘He will crush Vorag’s rebels within months, if Vorag doesn’t simply flee to Cripple Peak as he seems intent on doing!’ She glared at Neferata, unafraid. ‘Ushoran knows, Neferata. He knows it was you, even if he can’t prove it.’

‘He knows nothing,’ Neferata said. ‘All of his attentions are on the crown.’ She released Naaima. ‘Let Abhorash waste his time on Vorag. By the time he gets back, it will be too late. I will be queen again, with powers undreamt of at my command.’

‘Would you fight them both?’ Naaima said. ‘Would you fight both W’soran and Ushoran and their entourages? Our forces are scattered, and of those of us here, we are too few.’

‘We have enough. The time to strike is now!’ Neferata said, her form quivering with impatience. ‘The web has been drawn tight. All eyes are on other sights and our fangs are at Ushoran’s throat, though he sees them not.’

‘Khaled, you mean,’ Naaima spat.

‘Ushoran trusts him,’ Neferata said.

‘You mean you trust him.’

Neferata laughed. ‘Hardly, but I know him. He fears me and hungers for my touch. He will do as I command.’

‘And if you’re wrong?’

Neferata paused. ‘Then I will kill him. We must go now, Naaima. W’soran’s ritual will begin at any moment and we must strike as soon as he has completed it.’ W’soran had been positively gleeful when he received the tome that Morath had discovered. Within a few weeks he seemed to have discovered what he needed to bind Alcadizzar’s spirit, and tonight, with the Witch-Moon high in the air, was the night he had chosen to do the deed.

‘And what then?’ Naaima pressed.

Neferata looked at her in frustration. ‘What do you mean what then? Then we will have a kingdom to rule, and an empire to build.’

‘Remember what Abhorash said to you on our first day in Mourkain?’ Naaima said desperately. ‘Remember what he said about the difference between taking something and holding on to it?’

‘With the crown–’

‘You’ve seen what the crown has done to Ushoran. Look at yourself! All of our plans, tossed over for impulse,’ Naaima said, grabbing Neferata’s arms. ‘You endanger all of us, and for what – something that you neither need nor truly want?’

Neferata pulled her arms free of her handmaiden’s grip and slapped her. Naaima fell, eyes wide. ‘Who are you to say what I need? Who are you to question me?’ Neferata hissed, looming over the fallen vampire. ‘I will–’

Kill her. She is of no further use to us. Kill her for questioning you.

The voice was like a shiver of ice-water down her back. The voice – the damned voice! It had all begun to go wrong when she had first heard its whisper so many years before. And every decade, it grew louder and more insistent, like a maggot burrowing into her very brain. Its whispers had become demanding screams since her return from Nagashizzar, and now she could barely focus on anything else. ‘I will… I will forgive you, this time,’ she said, forcing herself to calm down. She stepped back, vision blurring as if her head were surrounded by a halo of flies.

It had all gone wrong in her absence, despite Naaima’s best intentions. Someone had told Vorag that Ushoran had decided to rid himself of his more barbarous servants in an effort to quell the unrest that swept Mourkain and Strigos. Creatures like Zandor and Gashnag had turned on their fellows. Several of the frontier ajals had seen their holdings burned or taken, and those who did not flee were impaled in the ashes of their lairs. Vorag had made his move, fearing he would have no other time. Stregga had gone with him. Sometimes Neferata cursed the initiative of her followers.

Now Strigoi fought Strigoi in the east and the wildling tribes had seized their opportunity. Savage hillmen attacked the outposts of Strigos and what forces had not been mobilised to fight Vorag now waged war on their former allies.

‘We should leave. Tonight,’ Naaima said, rising warily to her feet. ‘We’ll seek sanctuary with the Draesca. Or we could find Vorag. We could even go north, or west. Leave these mountains forever.’

‘I’m tired of running,’ Neferata said, not looking at her handmaiden. She clenched her hands and her claws extended like a cat’s. ‘I am tired of going poor into the night. It is the same game, over and over again, Naaima.’ She growled. ‘I want a new game.’ She looked at her servant, the only being she could still, perhaps, call friend. ‘Would you leave me again?’

‘No,’ Naaima said, after a moment of hesitation. ‘No, for better or worse, our fates are bound together.’

‘I’ve told you, there is no fate,’ Neferata said.

‘Prove it,’ Naaima retorted. ‘Let us leave.’

Neferata opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. She closed her mouth and turned, stalking towards the throne room of the black pyramid. After what seemed like an eternity, she heard Naaima begin to follow her.

The others were waiting for them in the audience chamber. Layla and Rasha and Anmar stood to the side, across from Ushoran’s honour guard, who were at last allowed into the pyramid with their master. And in a half-circle before the open aperture that led down to Alcadizzar’s tomb stood W’soran and his disciples, including Morath.

No others were in attendance, not even Ushoran’s inner circle. Likely they were too busy trying to decide who to back in the civil war now brewing. Neferata’s agents had made sure that it wouldn’t be an easy choice. Most would sit on the fence until one side or the other looked to be victorious, and then they would make their move to curry favour.

It was all perfect. Ushoran, alone, save for a few guards, with her knife at his throat. W’soran would stay out of it. The old beast despised them both equally, and he had flee the first chance he got, if Morath was to be believed. No matter, she could always find him again, if she needed him.

‘Ah, now the circle is complete,’ Ushoran said as he spotted her. He smiled thinly at her. ‘I trust I did not call you away from anything important?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ Neferata said. ‘I am honoured that you invited me to – what is this? – your coronation? And with so few in attendance…’

‘Jealousy ill becomes you,’ Ushoran said.

‘And condescension, you,’ Neferata said. ‘Vorag marches east. He has supporters there, on the frontier.’

‘And Abhorash marches in pursuit?’

‘As you requested,’ Neferata said. ‘It wouldn’t do to have him here. Not for this.’

Ushoran made a face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You did well.’

‘Your gratitude fills me with joy,’ Neferata said.

Ushoran snorted as he watched W’soran and his disciples prepare themselves for the rite. ‘I doubt that. Still, let it never be said that I cannot acknowledge the wit and worth of another.’

‘Oh, I’ve never said that,’ Neferata murmured. ‘The war with the tribes goes badly, my spies tell me.’

Ushoran grunted. ‘We are too few. But not for long.’

‘And what if Vorag defeats Abhorash? This civil war may become a less than foregone conclusion,’ Neferata said, not looking at him. ‘There are too many nobles straddling both sides. They will turn on us, Ushoran.’

‘Are you trying to upset me?’ Ushoran hissed. He glared at her. ‘Or are you simply so spiteful that you would seek to cast a shadow over this moment?’

‘Neither,’ Neferata said, meeting his glare calmly. ‘I am merely doing what you have tasked me with. I am informing you of the threats which besiege this straw empire you have built.’

‘Oh?’ Ushoran’s expression turned cunning. He gestured sharply. Khaled stepped forwards, carrying something wrapped in a bloodstained cloth. With a start, Neferata realised that it was a cloak. A dwarf cloak.

Ushoran was watching her face. ‘If you were so intent on informing me of threats to my rule, I cannot help but wonder why you neglected to mention that our stunted neighbours have been scurrying about in our pantry.’

Khaled pulled back the edge of the cloak, revealing a bloodstained axe; Razek’s axe, she realised in shock. Khaled did not meet Neferata’s eyes as she glared at him. ‘I did not want to worry you,’ she said. ‘I trust that you dealt with the trespassers?’

‘Oh yes,’ Ushoran said grinning. He traced the scrolling rune-work on the blade of the axe, wincing slightly. Neferata had never noticed before, but the runes were worked into the steel in threads of silver. ‘I dealt with them myself. I have not hunted in some time. Sometimes I wonder whether my current laws regarding such are as wise as I am assured that they are.’

‘We shall have to come up with some sort of explanation for the dawi,’ Neferata said, momentarily nonplussed. Razek was dead. Some part of her felt as if she had been cheated. She looked at Ushoran. ‘If they are aware of what he was–’

‘Then you will deal with it,’ Ushoran said, still watching her. ‘Won’t you?’

Neferata paused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘W’soran has said that the dawi work just as diligently and as well dead as they do alive. I think he exaggerates, but, well… he is the expert.’ Ushoran’s lips peeled back from the nest of fangs that inhabited his mouth. ‘Imagine it, my lady. The Silver Pinnacle, working day and night in the darkness, crafting arms and armour for the glory of Strigos and all for the price of a bit of blood.’ He snapped his fingers in front of her face. ‘We will be as invincible in war as we are in matters of life and death.’ He tapped the axe again. ‘And this will be our last payment to our allies, I think. After all, what need have the dead of gold?’

As plans went, Neferata could see the efficiency of it. It was also mad. And Ushoran was mad for suggesting it. She could see an unhinged hunger in his eyes. He had always been a slave to his hungers, even as they all were.

The forges of the dawi of the Silver Pinnacle will ring in the darkness unto eternity and the dead will sheathe their bones in iron and march against sunrise and sunset alike, the voice purred. It showed her the dead, crawling across the earth like black ants, sheathed in metal, burying everything under their iron limbs, and she was reminded of scarab beetles crawling across a corpse and stripping it of all flesh. The world would be a gleaming, silent tomb.

She shook her head and Ushoran cocked his, looking at her curiously. ‘You disagree?’

‘I... no, no, it is a good plan,’ she said, forcing the words out. ‘I look forward to it.’

‘Do you? I wonder,’ Ushoran said, turning back to the ceremony. ‘Now shush. History’s epilogue begins now.’

Stung, Neferata stepped back and joined her handmaidens. Naaima laid a hand on her arm and Neferata shook her off. Naaima looked afraid; it was the first time that Neferata had seen fear in her handmaiden’s face since before Lahmia fell. Layla was trembling like a child or a frightened animal, her eyes red and wide. Rasha was less obviously affected, but there were signs of strain on her face and in the rigidity of her muscles. It was no longer just her. Something was stirring in the dark, and even lesser creatures could sense it. Her senses were screaming in terror. The throne room seemed to contract. Someone was sitting on the throne. For a moment, the shape was lean and immense, a rickety giant clad in armour such as she had never seen, with a crown on its skeletal brow and eyes of green balefire that burned her clear through.

She shook her head and the vision passed. She looked at Anmar. ‘What is your fool brother playing at? I told him that Ushoran was to know nothing of the dwarfs until I decided to tell him!’

‘My lady, I–’

‘Don’t try and protect him, girl,’ Neferata said, grabbing Anmar’s arm. ‘What is he up to?’

Before Anmar could answer, W’soran and his followers began to speak, one after the other, their voices blending in dark harmony. The light of the braziers scattered about flickered and then blazed all the brighter, turning from a clean pale glow to something sickly and weird as the words echoed from the oddly vaulted reaches of the chamber.

Neferata stiffened as something reached out of the darkness of the tomb-corridor and caressed her. The chamber seemed to tremble with titan footsteps and the rock groaned and shifted. Smoke issued from the cracks in the walls and the floor and she could feel a heat pressing down on her from every direction, just as before.

Alcadizzar was coming.

W’soran spat something, and he flung out one gnarled limb. A weft of crackling onyx lightning stretched from his hand, splashing across the aperture. His disciples threw back their heads as W’soran pulled more power from them. Neferata blinked as she caught sight of what might have been obsidian webs spreading between the necromancer’s acolytes and binding them all together. Her blood began to race as she sensed something coming. She looked around, seeing the same intent expression on the face of every vampire in the chamber – a feral lust that stripped from them even the most basic shred of human dignity and instead replaced it with the bald greed of a starving animal.

When the light came, it was painful. A curling wing of flame lashed out of the aperture, spattering across the line of necromancers, and one screamed, high and piteous, as his ragged robes caught fire. He tumbled from the line, thrashing and beating at himself with stick arms and wispy fingers. The flames simply consumed him all the faster for his attempts to put them out. He crawled across the floor, leaving a greasy trail in his wake, his flesh blistering from his bones.

‘He comes!’ Morath screamed suddenly. Neferata saw the Strigoi stagger, their hands clapping to their ears. A moment later she understood why. The voice screamed, rattling her brains inside her head. It was not the voice of the crown, not the thin whisper of Nagash’s shadow, but the full-throated howl of the Prince of Rasetra and the last true King of Khemri as he was dragged from his tomb by W’soran’s magics. There was nothing of her gentle prince in the mad, billowing shape which lurched from the aperture, its limbs ballooning and thinning like the smoke of a raging fire. It roared and its face became an elephantine skull as it squeezed itself into the chamber.

‘Bind him, damn you!’ Ushoran roared, fighting to be heard over the tumult. ‘Bind his damned soul, W’soran! Do it now!’

W’soran did not reply. His dark parchment-like flesh had gone utterly pale from the strain of the great wreaking which he was attempting. The spirit swept one of Ushoran’s warriors up and the vampire flailed like a leaf caught in an updraft. It was crushed against the ceiling of the chamber, reduced to a wreck of bloody meat and crushed armour. Alcadizzar turned, empty eyes seeking more prey. Neferata froze as his eyes lit on her. Her handmaidens dived aside as the spirit swept towards them, but she could not move. She heard them crying out, but she could not answer.

Alcadizzar stopped, his ethereal features inches from hers, his blank eyes staring into her dark ones. She felt the heat of him, and knew that he could burn her form to a cinder, should he so choose. In life, Alcadizzar had been magnificent. In death, he had become something so monstrous that she felt fear for the first time in centuries.

But he did not burn her, or dash her to the stones. Instead he hesitated, his face becoming malformed as it rippled with long-forgotten expression. Again she saw times past, spreading out around them like the wings of some great bird, a kaleidoscope of thought and emotion and lost moments. Of a child whom she had weaned on immortality, of a boy whom she had trained, of a man whom she had come to – what? Had it been love? Or simply desire writ large?

‘I wanted…’ she croaked, reaching up as if to stroke his cheek. ‘I wanted things to be different.’

She saw his end. She felt the tremor of the hissing, smoking blade in his hands as it sheared through Nagash’s upraised hand, and felt the foul heat of that same sword as it ate into him, burning his hands raw and black. She saw him stumble through the mountains, naked and broken, his shard-thoughts so sharp that they cut his soul to ribbons even as his body at last began to fail. She saw him clutch Nagash’s crown tight to his chest as he sank to his knees in the freezing waters of the river, a living, screaming mummy, his flesh burned tight to bones made strong by the elixirs she had fed him as an infant.

She heard the crown scream as he carried it into the darkness, and how it ripped his soul free of his body, trying to force him to let go. She felt Kadon bind that monstrous soul-thing back into its shell, nearly killing himself in the process. And she saw him release those bindings even as red-eyed death closed in on him. And she knew, then, just what it was W’soran was trying to do and something she thought was sadness flooded her. ‘Oh, if you had just given in to fate,’ she murmured.

And what of you, Neferata, Alcadizzar whispered, would you give in?

Struck, she gaped at the spirit as it suddenly convulsed. Beyond it, visible through its cloudy shape, something horrible swayed in the aperture. It had clawed its way out of the deep places, invigorated by W’soran’s magics. Alcadizzar’s body, hungry for the return of its soul, was still a mighty thing, even shrunken by death. Withered muscles pulsed beneath cracked and dried flesh as it took a faltering step.

‘No,’ she hissed. ‘No!’

‘Yes!’ Ushoran howled.

Alcadizzar howled as well, as his spirit was dragged into his corpse. Many of W’soran’s acolytes were on their hands and knees, vomiting black blood as their master strained against the dead king’s strength. With a shriek, W’soran thrust his arms out, and Alcadizzar’s essence splashed against his corpse, seeping into it like an implosion. The thing rocked on its heels and its arms slowly spread, dropping the thing it held.

The strike of the crown against the floor sounded like thunder. ‘Now,’ Ushoran snarled. ‘Now, I will have my vengeance.’ He leapt for the wight, his claws sinking into its dried meat. ‘Now, I will tear you apart, usurper. I am the master here! Me!’

Alcadizzar shrugged, slapping Ushoran to the floor. Though contained, the malevolent spirit yet possessed strength. It groaned, and there was an eternity of agony in the sound. It reached for Ushoran, grabbing his neck and hoisting him off his feet. His guards swarmed it moments later, Khaled among them, hacking and slashing at the undead thing. Bound as it was to a physical frame, it lacked the strength to face that many opponents. The wight staggered and spun as blows struck it. Neferata could only watch helplessly as Alcadizzar fell to his hands and knees, the flickering light in his eye-sockets fading even as Ushoran threw himself on the wight and ripped its head from its body with a massive twist of his shoulders.

‘Behold,’ Ushoran roared, ‘the king is dead.’ His eyes fell on the crown. ‘Long live the king,’ he said more softly. Khaled stepped close to him and Neferata tensed in readiness. Ushoran lifted the crown. It throbbed in his hands, screaming in triumph. Khaled’s hand hovered over the hilt of his sword, his eyes on the crown and on its bearer. Tapestries were consumed in balefire along the stone walls and strange shapes seemed to walk between the ripples of otherworldly heat emanating from Ushoran’s prize. ‘Now,’ Neferata hissed. ‘Do it now – Khaled, now!’

Khaled’s hand jerked away from his sword. The crown settled on Ushoran’s head. Neferata shrieked and lunged. She tossed her traitorous servant aside and pounced on Ushoran, her features running like melting wax as they assumed a more daemonic cast. ‘It is mine-mine-mineMINEMINEMI–’ she shrilled as Ushoran fell over backwards with her on top of him.

The crown neither resisted nor aided her. In truth, it seemed pleased, though it didn’t speak. Images and memories not her own washed over her in benediction, and she saw the truth of it all at once. She saw the unmasked face of what lurked within that iron circlet, and heard its lustful glee as it contemplated its future. Not her future or Ushoran’s, but rather the future of the thing that it would make of them.

Ushoran howled as her claws found his eyes and he flung her over his head. She crashed into the floor hard enough to crack the stone. Ushoran turned, his body undulating as if it were trying to twist itself into a new shape. Neferata scrambled to her feet and yanked her sword from its sheath. She drove it with all of her might into Ushoran’s chest, propelling him backwards up off the floor and against one of the columns in a cloud of stone chips and dust. His talons fell on her arms, lacerating her pale flesh and forcing her to stumble back. Ushoran writhed like a bug pinned to a board, his limbs wriggling independently of one another. He howled and snapped like a wounded wolf, his eyes weeping terrible energies which coruscated around his form.

‘Treachery,’ one of the Strigoi roared as he lunged for her.

‘It’s not treachery,’ Neferata said, backhanding the vampire with enough force to shatter the front of his skull. ‘It’s a mercy killing.’ But even as she said it, doubts rose fierce, stinging her. The crown seemed to reach for her as Ushoran thrashed, calling to her, crooning.

I will ride you through the gates of the world, it said, each word a dagger of pain. You will be queen, Neferata, queen of Lahmia, queen of Mourkain and queen of the world, if you but take me up. Throne and crown, Neferata… TAKE ME UP!

And Neferata, all at once, knew her answer. She spun, tearing herself away from the seductive voice, away from its promises of an eternity of powerful servitude, away from the dark fate laid out for her. She would be queen, but on her own terms.

‘Kill her,’ W’soran shrieked. ‘Rescue your king!’ Neferata turned at the necromancer’s howl and saw shapes heaving in the weak light of the braziers, casting mutated shadows across the stones. W’soran’s ghoul-creatures had entered the throne room on stealthy claws and now they loped towards her, slavering.

An arm, impossibly long, whipped towards her and the talons attached to the blunt fingers gouged the wall as she ducked and spun, plunging her sword into the hollow gut of the ghoul-thing. It screamed and staggered. Rasha and Layla were on it in the instant, hacking and stabbing at it.

Another of the beasts lunged, the bone spurs jutting from the ruptured flesh of its forearms scraping along the floor as it sought to snatch Neferata up. Recalling the strength such creatures possessed, Neferata leapt. Her feet touched its wrist and she bolted up the length of its arm. It reared back as she slid across its shoulders, weasel-quick. Taking her sword in two hands, she drove it through the back of the creature’s skull, and the tip emerged between its jaws.

It grunted, coughed and slumped. She yanked her sword free and dropped to the floor before it. Anmar and Naaima had a third beast down on its hands and knees. It groaned piteously and fell, tongue protruding and the fire in its eyes guttering out.

Neferata glimpsed W’soran fleeing the chamber and prepared to follow him when she caught sight of Anmar and saw her handmaiden’s eyes widen. Anmar screamed, ‘No!’

Neferata turned and gasped as a tearing agony ripped through her. Blood burst through her lips. She looked down at Khaled’s sword as it wriggled deeper into her belly. She grabbed the blade and looked at her Kontoi as he stared blankly at her. ‘What–’ she coughed.

‘Why didn’t you take it?’ he rasped, staring at her accusingly. ‘Why couldn’t you just take it?’

Neferata staggered back, pulling herself off the sword. She pulled the blade as she went, yanking it from Khaled’s hands. Around her, her handmaidens were battling Ushoran’s guards, but she couldn’t focus. The thwarted screams of the crown pounded on the surface of her mind, making it hard to think. She stumbled and turned, bringing the sword up. Ushoran… She had to kill him. He couldn’t be allowed to wield the power she had felt.

Ushoran had freed himself, however. He glared at her, hand pressed tight to his belly. But it wasn’t Ushoran, not entirely. Something else looked out from behind his eyes and it hated her now, because she had spurned it. Just as Khaled hated her, just as she had hated Alcadizzar. She saw the whole story of it in Ushoran’s eyes and she chuckled.

‘You were right,’ she said, grinning. ‘Spite. It was all for spite.’ Then she screamed as Khaled brought Razek’s axe down on her shoulder, slamming her to her knees. She dropped the sword and fell onto her face as her flesh burned. As she screamed, her handmaidens raced to her aid.

Ushoran raised his hand and said, in a voice that was not his own, ‘STOP.’

And then Neferata knew nothing more, as the darkness that had once been so welcoming crashed down on her like the blows of a spurned lover.


FOURTEEN




The City of Sartosa

(–1020 Imperial Reckoning)

Neferata moved gracefully across the coloured tiles of the plaza, her robes trailing behind her. Her servants strode just behind her, shading her from the sunlight with a silk curtain held aloft on poles. ‘The druchii can be bargained with,’ she said, stirring the air with her hand-fan. ‘Who will miss a few hundred fishermen, Abruzzi?’

‘Their families, I would assume, Lady Neferata,’ Abruzzi of Sartosa said. He was a stiff-necked, heavy-faced man, and he looked uncomfortable in his coarse robes of state. ‘I do not know how things are done in Cathay, but here, we do not like to surrender our own folk to beasts from across the sea.’

‘Nor do we,’ Neferata said, touching his arm. ‘But needs must, Abruzzi. Sartosa has no strength at present. The druchii control the seas where the Arabyans do not. We must change that. More, we must have the time to change that,’ she said. ‘What are a few innocents in comparison to an empire that controls the seas?’

‘You say it so prettily, my lady,’ Abruzzi grunted, eyeing her. ‘Are all women so cold-blooded in Cathay?’

‘Needs must, my lord,’ Neferata said again. She sighed and tapped her lips with her fan. ‘Then, there are… things that could be done.’

‘Such as?’ Abruzzi said, stopping. Neferata paused before replying. The palazzo was a monument to the alliance of form and function. The walled garden was open to the sky and water burbled in the aqueducts that ran along the top of the walls. There were thick, fleshy plants and brightly coloured flowers everywhere she looked, and caged song-birds sang sweetly.

She wondered whether Abruzzi could smell the effluvium of the dungeons beneath the garden, or whether the gruff former-soldier knew what strange nourishment her garden received. A few months after her arrival on a night of chaos and fire, Neferata had used what wealth she had managed to bring from Araby to set herself up as a noblewoman from Cathay in the heart of Sartosa’s wealthiest district. Now her daughters and sisters danced with merchant-princes and senators at moonlit galas and some had spread beyond, entering the lands to the west and the north.

Some few yet remained in Araby, lurking within harems and as the young brides of old merchants and noblemen. The news they sent her was invaluable in building her fortunes anew, and she could now predict the activities of the pirates of the gulf with a startling accuracy. She had increased the wealth of Abruzzi as well, among others.

‘There are… secrets, known to me, my lord,’ she said, feigning hesitance. ‘We could provide the raiders with their tribute without sacrificing a single Sartosan.’

Abruzzi hesitated. He looked at her, but did not ask the question she knew was foremost on his mind. For that she respected him. Only a fool asked the obvious question. ‘And if you do this… what?’ he said.

‘I would expect an appropriate compensation, commensurate with my standing,’ she said prettily.

Abruzzi was silent for a moment, looking at an orange and yellow blossom that nodded in the breeze. He touched the flower and sniffed it. ‘You have much aided the senate, my lady, in removing certain obstructions to the furtherance of our influence over the more – ah – short-sighted of our nobility.’

‘Best to leave such thankless tasks to an outsider, I have always thought,’ she said, fanning herself.

‘Hmm.’ Abruzzi looked at her. ‘Not a single Sartosan, you say? You can spare our people from the bellies of the black arks?’

‘Yes,’ Neferata said.

‘And your appropriate reward?’

‘A seat on the senate,’ she said. She raised a hand before he could protest. ‘Not for me. For a… protégé of mine. His wife has done me many services, and I would see her – and him – rewarded.’

Abruzzi grunted. ‘Easily done,’ he said.

‘Then we have an accord,’ Neferata said, smiling…

The Silver Pinnacle

(–326 Imperial Reckoning)

The snow fell with a silent fury across the mountain. Ice gripped Neferata’s hair, changing the once-lustrous mane into something resembling a nest of black snakes. Across her shoulders, the dark-furred cat stirred, its triangular, tufted ears twitching. Yellow eyes opened and a quiet chirp escaped its mouth. She stroked it with her free hand. She wore a heavy bearskin and the black, ornate armour of Ushoran’s honour-guard, and the cat nestled between the pauldrons. Neferata moved through the waist-high drifts slowly but steadily, the haft of Razek’s axe clenched tightly in her grip. His blood still stained the handle and hers stained the blade, but if there was some meaning in that, she had had little time or desire to contemplate it.

Instead, her eyes found the great stone dragon head that seemed to lunge down towards her through the storm of falling snow, from the heights of the peak. It was a large thing, and bore more than a passing resemblance to the craniums of the giant lizards she had seen in the Southlands. The artistry that had gone into the crafting of it boggled her mind; her people had been known far and wide for their craftsmanship, but even they had lacked the sheer attention to detail that the dragon head displayed. It seemed to have no purpose, jutting as it did from the tightly packed rocks. Her keen eyesight picked out distant outlines that were likely other, similar protrusions, encircling the apex of the peak in a crown of dragons. With difficulty, she pulled her eyes down to examine that which she had come for.

The great doors of Karaz Bryn rose over her, looming bulwarks of stone and ancient metal fashioned by the artisans of a dying race and controlled by mechanisms which mankind would still struggle to understand a thousand years hence. The doors were set into a massive archway that had been decorated with an intricate latticework of carvings that might have depicted anything from legends to episodes of historical significance. The doors themselves were decorated as well, with a profusion of glowering, stylised faces done in the sharp, blocky style preferred by dwarf artisans.

There was a faint glow to those faces and it was one she knew would be invisible to human eyes. Even she could only glimpse it dimly. There was some magic worked into the very substance of those doors, and it bothered her to look at them for too long.

Even with the snow, her preternatural eyesight picked out the tiny holes where dwarf eyes watched her approach. She could almost hear their thoughts. And she certainly heard the whine of crossbows being readied. She stopped. Her muscles tensed and readied to propel her in one direction or another. Her hold on the axe tightened. The dwarfs had quietly moved to a war-footing in the year since Ushoran had taken Nagash’s crown for his own. Trade had not quite dried up, but it was more guarded. Fewer merchants came bearing King Borri’s seal. Fewer dwarf-made goods found their way to Mourkain. Even as she had warned Ushoran, the trust of dwarfs was a fragile thing and easily cracked. And she was here now to shatter what remained utterly.

‘I request entrance to Karaz Bryn,’ she called out, her voice echoing. Minutes passed. Snow settled on her shoulders and head. The cat chirped querulously, and she murmured soft nothings to it.

‘Who are you to ask such?’ It was a rumble of sound, echoing from the peaks that rose around her and sending small avalanches of snow tumbling from on high. Speaking tubes and amplifying flutes gave it such an effect, she knew. Nonetheless, it was impressive.

The voice spoke in Khazalid. Neferata replied in kind. ‘One who has come to return something which was lost,’ she shouted, holding the axe up to where the unseen speaker could see the runic insignia stamped on the swell of the blade.

Silence fell. She waited. Minutes passed into hours. Hours passed into days. The cat leapt down from her shoulders and trotted into the darkness, returning some hours later, as if checking on her. She could not fault it for its anxiety. Neferata stood for a time, and then sank to her knees, kneeling in the snow, Razek’s axe in her lap. The cold was nothing to her, nor was the snow. It was nothing but an irritation. It was simply another indignity heaped upon the pile.

Ushoran had beaten her.

He had beaten her at her own game. Even as she had undermined him, he had worked a deeper game, breaking apart the bonds of loyalty that she thought unbreakable. She blinked a snowflake from her eye. No, he had not broken it. He had twisted it instead, turning devotion and desire into something altogether more vicious.

Pride was her curse. It always had been. She had too much of it, too much to see the obvious, at times. And she had paid for it again and again. That too she hadn’t seen. Not for what it was.

Ushoran had made her bow.

That thought rattled around in her head as she waited. She grimly forced it down, and then it would stubbornly shoot to the surface, taunting her like a splinter beneath her thumbnail.

He had forced her to her knees. He had forced her to swear allegiance to Strigos, to Mourkain, and to him. He had forced them all, though some had gone more willingly than others. Some of it was the crown’s influence. That was what Morath had tried to warn her of, what W’soran had been terrified of. Nagash’s night-black will made manifest. It was impossible to resist.

That was the only reason she still lived. It stuck in her craw, that thought, but even she wasn’t so blind as to pretend it was any other way. She had bowed and Ushoran had let her live. She was more useful alive than dead. Abhorash was still occupied in the south. Vorag and his rebels had fled towards the Sour Sea, and her former champion doggedly pursued them. W’soran too was gone, fleeing in the months after Ushoran’s ascension. Neferata suspected that the old monster was heading south as well, seeking Vorag’s protection. That was what she would have done in his place.

That was what she should have done.

Instead, she was here, kneeling in the snow. Her features rippled with a snarl. The cat stiffened and nuzzled her throat, purring softly. She stroked it and fought to control the beast within. There were too many eyes on her and too much depending on her. Her web was stretched thin and fragile and one false move, one moment’s surrender would render it so much ragged gossamer on the wind.

Ushoran’s power had increased, but not his wisdom. He had unleashed her to do his will, but his will only reached so far. The farther she had gone from Mourkain, the less it had pressed upon her. Now it was barely a feather’s weight. Now, she stood before a fortress, with an army, and Ushoran was in Mourkain, confident that he had her held tight in his claws. She closed her eyes.

She would not fail.

And she would not bow again.

On the third day, she heard the squeal of ancient machinery propelled to life and a loose curtain of snow fell as the great doors of the Silver Pinnacle began to swing open. Raising the axe, she strode forwards, the cat once more about her shoulders, the soft rumble of its purr damping the impatience she felt. The momentum of the doors had cleared a great swathe of snow from the path, leaving the ground bare and damp.

There was more magic awaiting her. It was worked into the welcoming sigils that marked the interior archway and as she passed beneath them, they caused Neferata’s flesh to prickle. The magic struck at the heart of what she was, circling and trapping her in a ring of unseen fire. It took an effort of will not to slap at her flesh and beat out the invisible flames. On her shoulders, the cat shuddered slightly.

She took hold of herself as the dwarfs came out to meet her, clad in light mail and some carrying high poles with flickering lanterns which threw mad shadows across the rocks and snow. She stood in their light, axe extended, her other hand resting on the pommel of the sword on her hip. Other dwarfs carried crossbows, their bolts aimed unerringly at her.

‘Zanguzaz,’ one spat. That meant blood-drinker. Apparently her agents hadn’t managed to hide certain facts from Razek as well as she had thought. It was another failure to set at Khaled’s door when this was done. She inclined her head.

‘What of it?’ she said, meeting their hostile gazes with a bland one. ‘I have come to return the ancestral weapon of the Silverfoot clan.’ She let them see the axe.

‘Where is the one who bore it?’ one of the dwarfs barked. She could tell by the decorations in his beard that he was in charge. He bore a resemblance to Razek – he was a brother, perhaps, or more likely a cousin. It mattered little to her. Sympathy was no longer a vice she could afford.

‘Dead,’ she said simply.

The dwarf closed his eyes, as if the thought pained him. When he opened them, the banal hostility of the watchman had been replaced by something else. For a moment, Neferata thought he might order his warriors to fire, but instead he simply turned and gestured sharply. ‘Come.’

The others fell in around her as she was led through the doors. Even as she passed through the archway the doors began to swing shut. She peered up into the gloom, spotting the ancient mechanisms responsible. Massive cogs and gears, the purpose of which escaped her, shifted and spun against one another, setting up a rumble that caused the stone floor beneath her feet to vibrate with a constant hum. She grunted. The cat stretched, yawning. It dropped to the floor silently and retreated into the gloom. If the dwarfs saw, they gave no sign. Their attentions were held with iron rigidity on Neferata, even as she had known they would be. They had not asked for her weapons, for what threat could one woman – even one who drank blood – be to a mighty hold?

The entry hall was massive, with vast fluted galleries that swept up into smooth balconies that looked as if they had been coaxed from the stone by the hands of a sculptor rather than a stonemason. Tiles lined the floors, each one a work of art in and of itself, depicting an act of heroism or courage by a member of the Silverfoot clan. Large ancestor statues, representing past generations of kings, thanes, and lords of the Silver Pinnacle, lined the walls, each ensconced in his own nook.

Glowing globes, containing luminescent liquid, hung from stone half-arches spaced evenly along the length of the hall, casting a soft glow across everything. At the other end of the hall was a second set of great doors. These were another defence measure, sealing off the remainder of the Upper Deep from invasion. She knew both from her conversations with Razek and from her own spies over the centuries that the hold had many entrances – not just the one she had come through. There were doors everywhere on this level and others, some hidden, some not.

Regardless of the size of the attackers’ force, there was no way to lay siege to a dwarf hold. A mountain could no more be surrounded than it could be levelled by conventional means. It must be inundated and worn down from within as well as without. Both could take years.

She had months.

The weight of the hold seemed to press down on her as they walked. The thunder of the guards’ heartbeats was like some harsh, strange music to her ears, and its tempo aroused a nervousness in her that she was not used to. It was like being close to the beating heart of the world itself, and she desired nothing more than to drive her fangs into it and drink the earth’s life away and to leave the rocks grey and barren and the soil cracked and dry. She wanted to drink the world’s lifeblood and leave it a husk.

Her knuckles popped as her hands clenched. One of the dwarfs eyed her and exuded the stink of nervousness. That wasn’t her thinking those thoughts. It was Nagash’s damnable crown. Nagash wanted to eat the world and ride its shell into the darkness between the stars, for an eternity of silence. And Ushoran would help him do it, if there was anything of Ushoran left.

The crown’s weight had crushed him the minute he placed it upon his brow. It had shattered his personality into fragments, breaking him the way a man might break a horse. And it had nearly done the same to her. It wanted to break everything. It wanted to render the world a vast charnel pit, peopled only by the dead. And she would be damned to oblivion before she let that happen.

The world was hers; every scrap of dirt, every peasant and lord, human or otherwise. It was hers and Nagash – or his shade – would never have it. She would burn it to ashes before she let that happen. She had lost her city and her empire. She would not lose the world.

Dwarfs in armour marched past, some throwing curious glances her way. Razek had never spoken of the Silver Pinnacle’s military might, but she knew that it was substantial. They had easily weathered an orc Waaagh! and Kadon’s ill-fated incursions, among other perils. And King Borri had fought against the elves in that distant time when Ulthuan’s armies had marched on the dwarf holds.

The Silver Pinnacle would not fall easily. Not to conventional tactics.

A dull rhythmic thudding filled the air. She brushed aside the reverie, concentrating on what was coming. She had been led into a vast chamber, larger even than Ushoran’s gaudy monstrosity of an audience chamber. The first thing she saw was the glaring skull of a dragon.

She had never seen one. The closest she had ever come was a glimpse of the saurians of the Southlands, and they were as different from dragons as men were from her kind. The skull was large and studded with horns and it bent over as if in benediction.

Whatever force lingered within those bones, was unwelcoming at best and malevolently hostile at worst. In many ways, it reminded her of the cold malice of Nagash’s crown. A vast, ancient presence that threatened to blot out her senses with the effluvium of its passage. Even Nagash, the voice of the crown said, even Nagash would have hesitated to face that thing when it had lived.

But it was dead now, and its skull and spine and tattered wings were trophies for the dwarf king who sat glowering beneath it.

The throne beneath the bones was not large, but impressive all the same, as was the squat figure who sat upon it. Borri Silverfoot, King of Karaz Bryn, Lord of the Silver Pinnacle, looked like an ancient version of his son. He was broader, if anything, and heavily built. He wore no robes, only a sleeveless suit of fine mail, belted at the waist by a broad leather belt. On his white head was a simple circlet of office. His only decorations were the silver charms woven into his great beard and the silver bracers which enclosed his massive forearms.

Several figures stood to either side of him. One was a dwarf woman, clad in heavy, pale robes with her head hooded and her hands folded into her sleeves. She carried no weapons, but her eyes burned with something that Neferata could not identify beneath her steel half-mask. A burly bare-chested warrior, more squat than any dwarf she had ever seen before, stood a few steps down from the throne. He held an unadorned axe and his head was shaved, save for a swooping crest of rust-hued hair. His beard had been dyed the same colour, and it had been greased into stiff spikes that stuck out in all directions. Just behind the throne, an elderly dwarf stood, leaning against the haft of his hammer, which was taller than he was. His beard reached to the stone, and hundreds of rune-stones had been threaded through it. The sound they made as they clinked together set Neferata’s teeth on edge.

Her escort fell back as she approached the throne and dwarfs in heavy armour with their faces hidden behind iron masks took their place. They carried heavy, but perfectly balanced, hammers in their gauntlets, and looked less like living things than stumping mechanisms. They escorted her to the foot of the throne dais and then formed a living palisade around her. It bore the air of formality and ritual, rather than caution, but she knew that even so, the warriors would be alert to any threat to their king.

‘My son is dead,’ Borri said, his voice shattering the silence like a hammer ringing on an anvil.

‘Yes,’ Neferata said. One of the guards took the axe from her hand and carried it reverentially up the steps to the throne. Borri’s blunt fingers brushed the bloodstains on the handle and for a moment, his eyes clouded over with pain. Then they snapped back into focus and he flicked his fingers. The warrior laid the axe across Borri’s lap and stepped aside to stand with his king.

‘How did he die, and how did you come to bring me the news?’ Borri said.

‘He did not die by my hand, and I was commanded thus,’ she said.

A hush fell over the audience chamber, as if every dwarf present had drawn in a breath at the same moment. Borri’s expression didn’t change.

‘The manling lies,’ the red-crested dwarf grated. He looked at his king and then at Neferata, and gestured with his axe. ‘She lies! Razek was a mighty warrior!’

‘Silence, Grund. I asked how he died,’ Borri said hollowly. Grund fell silent, glaring at her.

‘As a result of treachery,’ she said plainly.

‘Whose?’ Borri said, his fingers curling almost protectively over the haft of the axe.

‘My lord Ushoran’s,’ Neferata said. ‘He struck down Razek and his followers.’

‘As the runes foretold,’ the old dwarf wheezed, his knuckles popping as he tightened his grip on his hammer. ‘Razek’s doom was writ long ago. This he knew.’

Borri gave a stiff nod. ‘It does not mitigate the stain of the misdeed,’ he said. Then, more loudly, ‘Step forth, Grudgemaster! There is a record to be made!’

An older dwarf, clad in ceremonial robes, stepped forwards from the crowd, cradling a heavy book in his arms. The book was almost as large as the dwarf himself and nearly as thick, and he carried it forwards with difficulty as well as reverence. Its covers were made from thick plates of silver and bronze, and the spine was made of iron. As the book-bearer moved, the king’s guard began to rhythmically pound the floor with the heads of their hammers, and a droning dirge rose from the throats of the gathered dwarfs. Neferata’s hackles rose as the sound resounded through the hall and coiled around her like restraining chains.

‘Be honoured, woman,’ Borri said, his voice carrying easily over the dirge. ‘You are to pay witness to something sacred.’ His eyes were deep and dark and sad as they held hers, and Neferata was once more struck by the thought that the dwarfs would make better allies than enemies. Borri motioned to the bones that loomed over his throne. ‘This beast took my father and my brother,’ he said solemnly. Grund flinched, looking away. ‘I took its life and made its lair into my home. The debt was thus paid. Debts must always be paid.’ Neferata said nothing. Borri grunted. ‘Good. Your words are neither needed nor welcomed.’

The Grudgemaster ascended the stairs towards the throne, and Grund joined him, sinking to one knee before Borri. The book was placed on Grund’s broad back and he grunted as its great weight settled on him. He leaned on his axe for support as the Grudgemaster carefully opened the book. Ancient parchment crackled. The Grudgemaster barked something in Khazalid and a younger dwarf hurried forwards, bearing a heavy stone bowl filled with what Neferata thought might be ink. The Grudgemaster extracted a silver and leather writing implement from within his robes and handed it to Borri, who took it and dipped it into the bowl of ink.

Silence fell. As the echoes of the dirge faded, Borri began to write. And as he wrote, he spoke. ‘Let it be henceforth recorded that I, King Borri of Karaz Bryn record this grudge before my people. I name myself grudgesworn against Ushoran, King of Mourkain. He is zanguzaz, and treacherous. By his hand did my son and heir, Razek, Thane of Karaz Bryn, meet his doom. Recompense and reparation are called for, and accounts will be settled in blood. Before my thanes, and my people, and with Grungni, Grimnir and Valaya as my witnesses, I swear this oath.’

The Grudgemaster sprinkled ground stone on the page and Borri carefully blew it off. Then he closed the book and looked up. ‘Why did Ushoran do this?’ Borri’s voice grew soft, but it carried as easily as before. The Grudgemaster took the book up and descended the dais. Grund stood and cracked his neck, working the kinks out.

Neferata shrugged. ‘Why ask, mighty king? The result stands. Razek is dead and I am here to demand the surrender of your hold.’

Borri was silent for a moment. Then he laughed. There was no humor in the sound; it was akin to the creaking of rocks just prior to an avalanche, and as he threw back his head, the avalanche fell. The laughter echoed through the silent audience chamber. Unlike in Ushoran’s court, no one here picked up the thread and joined their voice to Borri’s. The king laughed alone. As the echoes faded, he gazed at her steadily. ‘Surrender it to whom, woman?’ Borri rumbled.

‘To me,’ Neferata said.

‘Mad as well as a liar,’ Grund said. ‘By Grimnir’s beard, I’ll have your head!’ He raised his axe and started down the stairs.

‘Stay,’ Borri said. Grund halted. Neferata smiled. ‘She has come under a flag of truce, and audacity buys her mercy. You may leave as you entered, woman. None here will stay you. Go, and leave us to our grief. In time we will meet again, and I shall not be so merciful.’

Neferata didn’t move.

‘Did you hear me?’ Borri said, his voice taking on a menacing edge.

Neferata’s reply was to draw her sword and bound over the heads of the hammerers. The dwarfs sprang into motion even as her foot touched the stairs. Her blade looped out, slicing through Borri’s beard and sending one of the charms bouncing down the stairs. Borri’s hand fastened on the blade and he jerked her forwards even as he drove the tip into the back of his throne. Razek’s axe sliced out and she was forced to release her sword and flip backwards to avoid its bite. She landed in a crouch on the stairs, but not for long.

Grund crashed into her, nearly flattening her. His axe cut at her a moment later and she found herself surprised by the crested dwarf’s speed. Even as heavy as he looked, he still moved almost as fast as she herself. With a joyful howl, he threw himself at her. ‘Take my burden from me, witch!’

Neferata had no idea what he was talking about and she had no intention of finding out. She avoided his wild blows, reeling this way and that and once nearly bending double as he swung at her. Grund’s eyes bulged and foam collected at the corners of his jaws as battle-fury swept him up in its embrace. His axe bore no runes or devices. It was simply an axe. But Neferata was loath to test its edge. She sprang back from him, putting a large span between her and the dais.

But even as she landed, hammers crashed into the stone, narrowly missing her as she danced and wove through the throng of guards that sought to bring her down. She caught a hammer on her palm. Even as her fingers curled around its head, she yelped. Smoke rose from her palm as she jerked it out of its wielder’s grip and grabbed the haft, lashing out with the weapon. A dwarf flew backwards, his helm crushed and the skull beneath turned to paste. Another crumpled, his breastbone shattered despite the protection of his armour. Neferata’s frenzied assault drove the hammerers back, and they spread out, surrounding her but staying out of her reach. She turned slowly in place, keeping them all in sight.

‘What did you think to accomplish?’ Borri said, rising from his seat. He jerked her sword from his throne and hurled it clattering to the floor. He stared at the blood welling from his palm and flexed his hand as if the blade had caused him no more pain than an insect bite. ‘Did you think to assassinate me? Did you hope to remove the heart from my people?’ He grunted. ‘We dwarfs are not as men. We do not quail when our own die. We fight all the harder.’

He came down the stairs, still holding his son’s axe. The robed woman and the elderly dwarf followed him, and Grund paced in front, trembling like a hound on a leash. ‘This axe has tasted your blood, I think. It thirsts for it still, regardless,’ Borri said.

‘It shall have to work to get another taste,’ Neferata said, shaking her palm. Something had burned her. She saw that the head of the hammer was shot through with threads of silver and growled. Razek’s axe had been the same.

‘Not as hard as all that, I think,’ Borri said grimly. ‘You are alone, woman. Outnumbered and surrounded. Surrender and I will be merciful. That offer still holds.’

‘I think our concepts of mercy differ greatly, King Borri,’ Neferata said, twirling the hammer in her hands. It was a good weapon, but too brutal for her tastes. She spun on her heel and sent the hammer flying towards Borri. She did not wait to see whether it struck its target. Instead, as all eyes followed the hammer, she leapt for an opening in the ring of flesh and steel that encircled her.

Behind her, she heard the ring of metal on metal and Borri bellowed a command. The floor trembled as the hammerers followed her. Crossbows thrummed and quarrels peppered the floor and walls. Neferata avoided each one with ease. To one with her senses, the bolts appeared to be moving in slow motion. She could see the very air split and twist as the bolts cut through it. Even as the bolts struck the archway of the audience chamber, she was into the corridor beyond and running. She had wasted enough time.

Horns sounded in the deeps, warning the hold of danger. She knew that the horns were not for her. The corridor trembled as the great gate began to open once more. Frigid air slithered into the hold, greeting her as she reached the entry chamber even as the doors began to spread wide.

Naaima stood before the doors, surrounded by dwarfs seeking to bring her down. Broad shapes stabbed at her, and her pale flesh was streaked with black blood. Neferata struck the gate-wardens like a thunderbolt. Her talons sank into the back of a dwarf’s head and she jerked him backwards with savage force, snapping his neck and crushing his skull like an egg. More dwarfs flooded into the entry hall through the second set of doors.

‘Did you get the gates?’ Neferata snarled, snatching an axe from a dwarf’s hand and burying it immediately in its owner’s face. A moment later she was forced to use it to deflect a crossbow bolt.

‘They’re opening, aren’t they?’ Naaima replied, narrowly avoiding a blow that would have taken her arm off at the shoulder. Her rejoinder ripped the dwarf’s face from his skull.

‘Then we only have to hold on for a bit longer,’ Neferata said. Even as the words left her lips, a trio of crossbow bolts sank into her back, puncturing her armour like paper and knocking her to the ground. She screamed in pain and surprise, and flopped around for a moment like a fish in the bottom of a boat, before pushing herself to her feet, the heads of the bolts scraping against her insides as she moved. She coughed blood and awkwardly plucked one of the bolts free.

‘Shoot her again!’ the watch-warden commanded. ‘Bring her down!’ He was the one who had escorted her into Borri’s presence, the one who resembled Razek.

Neferata growled low in her throat and sent the bloody bolt flying into one of the crossbowmen, knocking the dwarf backwards with the impact. Naaima yanked the others free as she and Neferata began to back towards the widening portal. Gears groaned as the massive doors allowed a cold wind inside, and a flurry of snow.

More dwarfs filled the entry hall, all armed and seemingly intent on using those weapons on her. Horns sounded loud, low and long from the side-passages and the upper balconies. Neferata scanned the ranks of dwarfs; in minutes, a hundred or more crossbows were aimed at her. And behind the line, King Borri and his hammerers.

‘Get that damned gate closed!’ the king roared. ‘She’s trying to escape!’

‘She won’t get far,’ the watch-warden roared. ‘This is for my cousin, hag!’ His axe licked out, gouging her armour. She swatted him aside, sending him crashing to the floor and his axe flying.

‘Escape is for the defeated,’ Neferata said, stepping back into the opening. With the air of a performer, she threw back her head and extended her arms. ‘Enter, my loves, and be welcome!’ she howled. Snow spun around her and behind her and the white expanse was suddenly shattered by black shapes that burst from it like abominable shooting stars.

The wolves were more carcass than carnivore, but they were dangerous for all that. Twice as savage in death as they had been in life, the large beasts loped into the hold, fleshless jaws agape and an alien hunger burning in their lifeless eyes. They stank of ancient places and secret crimes and the sight of them caused the closest dwarfs to hesitate, though only for a moment. But that moment was enough. The wolves hit the line, absorbing hastily-fired crossbow bolts as if they were no more than mosquito bites. They made no sound as they crashed into their prey, but the dwarfs screamed well enough.

Behind the wolves came Neferata’s handmaidens, their armour crusted over with ice. Khaled sprang past her, his face tight and feral with pleasure as he tossed her a sword. ‘You look as if you could use this,’ he said nastily, his tongue writhing between his fangs like a red snake.

She snatched the blade out of the air without replying. Khaled laughed at her silence and strode past her, as the handmaidens clustered about her. Anmar looked at her worriedly. The young woman had taken to staying by her brother’s side in the weeks since they’d set out from Mourkain. Perhaps Anmar suspected that her brother’s manner and method would see a Strigoi sword in his back, or maybe she feared that Neferata would attempt to wreak her revenge sooner rather than later. She hesitated, torn between her mistress and her brother. ‘Lady,’ she began.

‘Follow your master, whelp,’ Neferata hissed. Anmar stepped back, as if slapped. She spun and followed Khaled into battle. Neferata watched her go and then turned to Iona and the others. ‘Help them. We need to drive the dwarfs back and hold this point. Everything depends on it. Go!’

The vampires sprang into motion, still one moment and then flashing forwards, shadows thick with kill-urge. The other end of the entry-hall was slick with blood as the organised ranks of the dwarfs crumbled into a melee. The wolves stalked among them, dragging dwarfs down and mauling them. The vampires flung themselves into the confusion with fierce glee, Khaled in the lead.

‘He’s heading for Borri,’ Naaima said. Neferata frowned.

‘Can’t have that, can we? I need more time.’ She looked at her handmaiden. ‘See to the advance. Morath and the others need to hurry. I will see to the rest.’

‘Are you–’ Naaima began, casting a dark look at Khaled. She reached up, almost but not quite touching Neferata. Neferata grabbed her hand.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘And hurry.’

Naaima nodded and turned, sprinting into the snow. Neferata tightened her grip on her sword and threw herself into the red sea of battle. Khaled was carving a wet path to Borri, who seemed determined not to allow the invasion of his hold to progress further. A rotting wolf lunged out of the confusion towards the king, but Grund slapped it from the air and crushed its skull to powder with his foot. More horns were sounding now, so many that the stone seemed to vibrate with their sound. There were more guards in the high places, and crossbow bolts dropped like rain. Nearby, a wolf stumbled and fell, its unnaturally invigorated form looking like a hedgehog for all the bolts jutting from it. Neferata swatted a bolt from the air and searched for her former servant.

Khaled spat Arabyan oaths as his sword chopped down on a dwarf. He kicked the body aside and then the way was clear, save for the mad-eyed Grund. Nostrils flaring, the red-bearded dwarf made to face Khaled, but Borri stopped him with a look. ‘No, this is not your doom,’ Borri said. Grund cursed, his lips writhing back from rows of filed teeth.

‘Let me have my doom, brother!’ he shrieked, his muscles rippling with tension. The raw agony in his voice gave pause even to Khaled, who hesitated. ‘Please,’ Grund spat, as if the word were a razor, slicing his throat to shreds even as it escaped.

‘No,’ Borri said. He pointed his hammer at Khaled. ‘This is my kill.’ As Grund stepped back Khaled trotted forwards, more confident now, and Borri waited with his son’s axe in one hand and a hammer in the other. ‘Come on then, corpse-eater,’ Borri said. ‘Some of us have kingdoms to run.’

Khaled obliged, diving forwards like a bird of prey, his sword extended. Borri took a half-step back, his hammer beating the blow aside and his axe ringing off Khaled’s pauldron, staggering the vampire. The hammer swam upwards, the edge of the head catching Khaled on the chin. Borri moved even faster than his son, Neferata realised. Then, Razek had been a diplomat, not a warrior. Borri was a king of the old style – a warrior down to his very bones.

He had fought elves once, in an age when men hid in caves, and likely worse things. Khaled, for all the inhuman ferocity that flowed from him, was as nothing to the things that Borri had seen in his darkest moments, Neferata knew.

Khaled staggered back, his shattered jaw re-knitting itself. Neferata tensed, hoping that Borri could finish the job. It would make things simpler in the long run. But such was not to be. Khaled, aware of what he faced now, avoided the next blow and his sword lightly stroked the side of Borri’s face, opening a gash that stretched from jowl to brow. The dwarf didn’t hesitate, barrelling into the vampire, who squirmed backwards, letting his sword dart out to prick the dwarf’s face and uncovered arms.

Neferata hissed. Khaled was attempting to draw Borri away from his guard. Once out of the protective envelope of steel and muscle, he would be surrounded, cut off and brought down. Khaled wasn’t playing champion, he was playing bait. With the king dead, it was very likely that the dwarfs would retreat. And with Borri dead, taking the hold would be an easier, quicker affair. And Neferata couldn’t allow that.

She flew across the distance separating her from the combatants. She threw herself in among the hammerers, cutting down one with a grunt of effort. Even as strong as she was, cutting through the solid mass of an armoured dwarf was no easy task. A hammer connected with her hip, cracking bone, and she turned her stumble into a leap, crashing into Khaled and sending them both flying. Borri’s guards raced to surround their lord and Khaled was forced to slither out of reach of their weapons.

Her former servant glared murder at her, but she pretended not to see. Her sword sliced out, cutting the head from a hammerer, and then she was up and limping back.

‘What were you–’ Khaled raged, grabbing her arm. Neferata shook him loose.

‘Keep the gate open, fool!’ she snapped, gesturing to the winch mechanism that controlled the gate. Several dwarfs were attempting to fight their way towards it. Khaled uttered a snarl and bounded towards them, his sword snicker-snacking out to relieve one of the warriors of his bearded head. Neferata grinned and turned back to Borri. The king’s eyes met hers, and she knew that he knew that the dwarfs were going to lose control of the gate. ‘Fall back, mighty king,’ she murmured. ‘Stall with all of your might. Make us pay in blood for every metre.’

As if he had heard her, Borri’s eyes narrowed. Then he raised his hand. One of his hammerers put a curling ram’s-horn to his lips and blew a single, sorrowful note. The remaining dwarfs in the gallery began to fall back, even as they attempted to pull themselves into something resembling a battle-order. The sound of great pistons shook the chamber and Neferata looked up. Some dwarfs scrambled across the balconies, moving pulleys and wheels into motion even as others covered the retreat of their fellows with another barrage of crossbow bolts.

‘What in Usirian’s name are they doing?’ a vampire snarled as she plucked a bolt from her thigh. Neferata snorted.

‘Exactly what I supposed they’d do. They’re sealing the entry hall.’

‘We have to stop them!’ Khaled snarled, gesturing with his sword.

‘No, not us,’ Neferata said. She turned her face to the snowy wind. A thin black shape galloped through the doorway on a horse that was nothing but bone and balefire. Morath glared about him with hollow eyes as his arrival scattered the gathered vampires. The snow turned to steam as it touched him. Large leather-winged shapes joined him, swooping up towards the balconies with predatory shrieks.

‘Just in time,’ Neferata said, sheathing her sword.

‘It took more than I suspected to keep the bats flying in the storm. Even dead flesh and necromancy have their limits,’ Morath said, watching as the fell-bats attacked the dwarfs above. One by one, they either retreated or died, and soon not one living dwarf remained in the entry hall.

A moment later, the chamber resounded with the sounds of the inner doors of the hold slamming shut as one.

The siege of the Silver Pinnacle had begun.