Neferata

SEVENTEEN




The City of Sartosa

(–850 Imperial Reckoning)

The khopesh, its blade pitted and scarred by sand and time, chopped into the marble column, missing Neferata’s head by inches. She slid down and lashed out with a foot, kicking the dead thing in its ribcage and snapping its spine. It toppled, only to be replaced by two more. Spears thrust at her, and blood spurted from her cheek and arm. She cursed and smashed a leering skull with a jab of her palm.

As the dead crowded into the plaza, she slithered up the column, avoiding the bronze weapons which sought her heart. She leapt for the aqueduct, splashing into the water. She paused and surveyed her villa. Ghouls spitted on the spears of Settra’s legions writhed in the torchlight, reaching vainly for her. She felt neither sympathy nor pity for the creatures, though she had brought them to this sad fate.

The screams of her handmaidens, however, evoked rage. She longed to throw herself back into the fray, but her instincts of self-preservation were too strong. The sound of chariot wheels crunching across the cobbles reached her, and she turned and ran along the aqueduct. In the distance, Sartosa burned.

Megara’s warning had haunted her for years, but she had never truly believed that they would come for her. And now it was too late to do anything but run. The Tomb-Fleets of Settra the Imperishable had come to Sartosa, carrying the vengeance of Nehekhara across the sea.

‘Neferata,’ Naaima called out. Neferata saw her handmaiden on the roof of the villa with the other survivors. She heard the creak of dusty strings and saw a line of skeletal archers.

‘Get down, fools!’ Neferata shouted, as the arrows sped forth. She did not look to see who had fallen. Instead, she turned, alerted by the quiet tremble of the aqueduct. The butt end of a staff caught her in the belly, folding her over. She sank to her knees and looked up. ‘You,’ she hissed.

‘Neferata,’ Khalida of Lybaras said in a voice like the rustling of ancient silk. Her slim form was bound tight by the ceremonial wrappings and her proud head still wore her funerary head-dress and the mortuary mask that hid the ravages that death had made upon her once beautiful face. ‘In the darkness I dreamt of you, cousin.’

‘I dreamed of you as well, little hawk,’ Neferata said, rising slowly to face her cousin.

‘Hawk no longer. My wings are dust and bone,’ Khalida said. Her wrists creaked as she began to spin the asp-headed staff. It was the same staff that she had been entombed with. Neferata had placed it in her hands herself. ‘I crawl through time now, like an asp.’ So saying, she struck out, the serpentine head of the staff cracking Neferata across the shoulder and nearly spinning her around. Khalida slid forwards, the water seeming to part for her linen-wrapped feet as she struck again and left a red gash across Neferata’s back.

Neferata fell forwards into the water, agony such as she had never felt spitting through her. She rolled aside, nearly falling out of the aqueduct as the bronze-shod end of the staff came down, cracking the stone. Water began to flow down through the crack.

‘You took my wings, Neferata. You made me crawl. Now I will return the favour. Crawl, cousin,’ Khalida said, her tone remorseless and empty of the emotion that should have permeated such a statement. ‘Crawl.’

‘Never,’ Neferata snapped, kicking Khalida in the midsection. The dead woman staggered and Neferata came to her feet, her talons flashing and ripping through the wrappings around Khalida’s chest, revealing the leathery flesh beneath. Fingers like iron bands fastened on Neferata’s throat and she felt herself hefted, then she was flying down into the plaza. Tiles cracked and exploded beneath her. The dead circled her, but none moved to attack. She was Khalida’s prey, and no other’s.

Neferata pushed herself to her feet as her cousin approached, her torn wrappings fluttering about her like hissing snakes. The staff snapped out, catching her on the chin, and she was airborne again before landing heavily. ‘Nehekhara is dead, Neferata, and all her people with her. Why should you escape the fate of the Great Land? Why should you walk in twilight, while your people suffer in darkness?’

‘Because I am queen,’ Neferata snarled, lunging up and grabbing the staff. The two of them swung about, struggling. ‘And the suffering of our people is not my responsibility, cousin. I tried to save them!’

‘Is that what you call it?’ Khalida said, wrenching the staff away. Neferata ducked the blow and her claws scored the beautiful mask. Khalida stepped back. ‘Your actions damned them, though they knew it not until the end.’

‘No,’ Neferata growled.

‘Yes,’ Khalida said. She struck again and again, forcing Neferata to dodge and back away. The dead allowed her to retreat. ‘Your existence dishonours the memory of our people, cousin. It spits on their grave.’

‘They dishonoured me,’ Neferata shrieked, anger burning through her. ‘They forced me out! They burned my beautiful Lahmia! They deserved all that Nagash did to them!’ As the words slipped her lips, she felt it again – that dark, watchful presence that had been coiling within her ever since she had set foot on Sartosa’s shores. It purred in satisfaction and she saw darkness. She shook her head and Khalida’s staff caught her on the arm.

There was a voice in her head, calling out to her as if from a vast distance. It called her to the black, pleading with her to look, to see, to come. The staff cracked against her upraised forearms. Khalida lunged smoothly, as she had in life. A gash opened across Neferata’s left breast, and then her claws punched through the paper-thin flesh of Khalida’s midsection. Bones crunched and linen tore as she savaged the corpse-woman.

There was a sigh from the ranks of waiting dead, and then they stepped back, opening a path for her to join the others. Neferata looked down at Khalida, lying broken much as she had centuries before. But this time, she was not dead and her tongue was not stilled. ‘Go, Neferata. Your master calls.’

‘What?’

‘Your master calls. Run to him. We will meet again.’

Neferata hesitated, yearning to smash the white death-mask, to eradicate that mocking, solemn expression. Instead, she turned and ran. As she did, she swore that she would never do so again. And even as she swore that, she knew that it was a lie…

The Silver Pinnacle

(–326 Imperial Reckoning)

Time passed differently for immortals. It was something that had taken some getting used to; the passage of days was now like an eye-blink and centuries became as days. Even so the time spent in the darkness moved altogether too slowly for Neferata. Patience was not a virtue she possessed in abundance at the best of times and she was fast running out. But as bad as it was for her it was worse for others, whose hungers were stronger for all that they were less controlled.

‘We should take them now,’ one of the vampires, a cunning creature called Varna, growled, shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other as they crouched in the shadows of one of the interior tunnels that ran between the levels of the hold. A prisoner they’d taken a few days previously had, under the influence of Neferata’s mesmerism, confirmed that the tunnels were old ore veins that had been repurposed as doglegs to be used in the event that the Silver Pinnacle was ever compromised. The tunnels explained how the dwarfs had launched their ambushes and counter-assaults in the first weeks of the siege. They had also used them to send messengers to other dwarf holds. None of those messengers had got far.

Neferata didn’t reply to Varna’s remark, nor did she take offence as she once might have. Weeks with barely palatable blood and the strain of the constant dance of ambush and counter-ambush in these cramped tunnels had rendered even Naaima irritable. For the younger vampires, it was likely a torment. Iona snarled wordlessly at the other vampire, silencing her complaints.

Iona’s group had rejoined them after the destruction of the dwarfs’ breweries and water supplies. Rather than demoralising the dawi, however, the destruction of their beer supply had only served to incense them. Neferata had lost two more of her handmaidens in the days following, to dwarf ambushes in or around tempting targets. The dwarfs had lost more, however.

Now they crouched within one of the cramped tunnels that crisscrossed the entirety of the hold. From them, one could reach anywhere within Karaz Bryn if one didn’t mind travelling in nearly suffocating darkness for days on end. Even the dwarfs weren’t certain how many there were these days. Some had been sealed off and forgotten for one reason or another, their iron doors rusted shut. It was on one side of such a door that Neferata and her followers waited.

On the other side, dwarf voices murmured. The dwarfs had been using the ore veins for the last month to launch surgical strikes against the flanks of the Strigoi forces as the dead moved steadily and inexorably through the upper levels of the hold. How he had gotten the interior entry gate open, Neferata couldn’t say. Regardless, once inside, Khaled’s talent for bloodletting had come to the fore and the dwarfs had been forced into a steady retreat. There were only a few thousand warriors in the Silver Pinnacle, not nearly enough to stem the advance of the dead. With Morath at his side, Khaled had forced the dwarfs back and back, as she had known he would. The dead might not be able to rule the living, but they could grind them down well enough. Gate after gate had fallen.

Now, only one remained.

Just beyond the rusted portal that blocked their way was the vaulted hall that led to the so-called Deeping Stair. Beyond the Deeping Stair were the temples and shrines. The dwarfs had chosen to make their last stand beneath the gazes of their gods. They had hunkered down, prepared to outwait their enemies, despite a lack of food, resources or reinforcements.

Perhaps they thought the runners they had sent along the Underway to request aid from other dwarf holds had escaped. Perhaps they thought that the Strigoi would grow bored. Perhaps they thought neither of these things but could do nothing else save sit waiting stubbornly for the end, whatever form it took.

Neferata stood. The eyes of her handmaidens followed her. She gestured, and felt the cool, damp presence of the spirit-host. It had only grown larger since she had first brought the ghosts from the depths of the river. Dozens had become hundreds as dwarf spirits were wrenched from their bodies and added to the spectral morass which followed the vampires like an omnipresent mist.

‘We must get the last gate open,’ she said.

‘That means revealing ourselves to an entire army,’ Naaima said.

‘A risk we’ll have to take,’ Neferata said. She looked at Naaima. ‘The time has come. My patience has grown thin and the dwarfs aren’t moving any further. It is time to bring this farce to an end.’

‘Which end, the one Ushoran envisions, or the one you’ve been plotting since we arrived?’ Naaima said softly. Neferata blinked. Naaima sighed. ‘I know you.’

‘The only one that matters, Naaima. Mine,’ Neferata said, after a moment. She looked around, meeting the unblinking gazes of her handmaidens. ‘Ours,’ she amended. ‘Here we will be free. Here, in these halls, we will build a New Lahmia.’ She reached out, stroking Varna’s knotted and tangled hair. ‘Here we will be queens. We will be the queens of the world. Let Ushoran gnaw the bones of Mourkain. Let him have his petty kingdom. When it falls, we will still be here. When all of the kingdoms of the world are footnotes in the histories of scribes yet to be born, we will still be here. We will sit here, astride a throne made from the world’s spine, and our subjects will be kings and hetmen.’

‘What of Khaled? What of Morath or the Strigoi?’ Naaima said. ‘What of Ushoran?’

‘We will do as we have always done with those who would try and stop us,’ Neferata said. Seeing the look on Naaima’s face, she added, ‘Once the gate is open and the dwarfs are in retreat, you will take the others and bind the Strigoi. They are as few in number as we and they’ll be fewer after the coming battle. She hesitated, then, ‘Leave Morath for last.’

‘What of Khaled?’ Naaima said, and Neferata heard the unspoken question – and Anmar? – and she looked away.

‘I will handle him myself.’

Naaima fell silent. Neferata smiled thinly. The others trusted her, and obeyed her implicitly. Naaima knew better, knew enough to know that Neferata was not infallible. But she obeyed. They lived on the sharp end, and to hesitate was to get cut. She gestured. ‘Go, my hungry she-wolves,’ she said curtly. Iona and Varna snarled and sprang for the door. Their shoulders struck it, and the iron bolts popped from the stone and the door toppled inwards with a thunderous clang. Dwarf voices were raised in surprise as Iona and Varna scrambled to their feet and to the attack.

‘Harry them. Take every alcove and cul-de-sac,’ she shouted, raising her sword. The spirit-host boiled around and between the remaining vampires squeezing into the corridor beyond. Neferata loped in its wake, as swift as thought. There was no light within the passageway, but she saw plain enough. The dwarfs there radiated life and heat and saliva filled her mouth.

The dead and the soon-to-be-dying came together in the darkness. The dwarf line held, shields raised and axes high as the vampires rampaged among them. Neferata’s sword split a dwarf’s helmet and the head beneath even as the doomed warrior struck at her in vain with his axe. She waded into the line, followed closely by the others, the spirits of the hungry dead clustering on the flanks, pulling down dwarfs with ethereal talons.

‘Hold steady, lads, it’s just an ill-breeze,’ a dwarf bellowed. His axe was decorated with runic symbols that burned bright as he swiped at the ghosts. Several shrieked silently and dissipated as the axe blade cut through them. Neferata felt a spike of pain as the spectres vanished and she lunged for the dwarf. He caught her blow on his shield with a grunt, and the force of the impact drove him to one knee. His axe hissed, as if red-hot, as it cut at her and she hastily jerked back. Like the hammers wielded by the king’s guard, some enchantment had been worked into the metal.

Neferata traded blows with the dwarf as the corridor floor ran red. Undeterred by the runic axe, the spirits swept forwards, enveloping the dwarfs and sucking the life from them. As each dwarf fell, the face of the one facing Neferata grew harder and harder, and his blows came faster and faster, as if by defeating her he could save those of his men who remained. And perhaps he could have, if she had let him.

He chopped out at her, overextending himself. She rolled around the blow, stone scraping beneath her sandals as she twirled and brought her sword up into his back. His mail buckled, and the sword screeched against the metal as it penetrated and popped out of his barrel chest in a blossom of blood. She withdrew the sword and turned as he toppled onto his face. The dwarfs were retreating now, falling back along the corridor towards the point where it opened up into a balcony that overlooked the great hall beyond. A wide set of curving stairs waited for them on one side of the gate, leading down to the open floor below.

Neferata paused, taking in the scene. The Deeping Stair was a mile across and three miles long and carved from a single plane of rock. In other circumstances, it would have been breathtaking. It was the main artery for travel in the hold, and even now, dwarfs hurried across it, seeking the safety of the temple district located below. She recognised the immense statues of the dawi gods and goddess, watching with blank-eyed sadness as their people streamed for the safety the temples promised. She could feel the same burning pressure emanating from those buildings as she had felt at the Vaults.

With that realisation came an understanding of the pattern to the dwarf movements. They were fighting a rearguard action, trying to give their people a chance to reach safety. She grimaced. If they reached those temples, they would be almost impossible to dig out. Unless they came out of their own free will. Her frown faded and she moved on, still thinking.

The vaulted chamber rang with the sound of weapons as the fight spilled onto the balcony. The large doors that led to the entry hall shuddered on their hinges and ranks of dwarfs waited for the undead without to break in. There were shouts of surprise from their ranks and reinforcements hurried towards the stairs, seeking to halt the incursion.

Of the dozen or so dwarfs who remained on the balcony, a small group of five set themselves to guard the retreat of the others in a display of commendable bravery. Like their commander, they intended to sell their lives dearly. Neferata leapt from the balcony, bypassing them entirely. Her handmaidens followed, leaping and bounding, leaving the spirit-host to deal with the survivors from their entry. As the spectral creatures boiled across the balcony, the vampires descended. Neferata’s eyes found the pulley and wheel system that controlled the titan doors and she gestured with her sword. ‘Take it! Get it open!’ she howled.

Crossbow bolts rattled off the stone and their armour as more dwarfs moved to stop them. One of her handmaidens, a brunette creature called Sabine, was punched backwards, a bolt standing at attention between her breasts. She writhed and shrieked as she squirmed on the ground, clawing at her chest. Neferata ignored her follower’s plight as she bounded towards the gate mechanism. She hit the crank with her shoulder, throwing her whole body into the act. The immense chain that raised the counter-weights which would open the door shook as she hit it.

Crossbow bolts sprouted from her back and her arms. She gasped in pain, but resisted the urge to turn on her attackers or retreat. More bolts smashed home, and she slumped, coughing blood. Yet with a grinding roar, the gates to the inner deep began to swing open. Neferata rolled off the mechanism and fell to the floor as the gigantic ghouls that led the Strigoi advance ripped the doors the rest of the way open and admitted the undead host.

The sounds of battle filled the air and she closed her eyes. The crossbow bolts that had pierced her began to fall free one by one as she encouraged her metamorphic flesh to expel them. Hooves clopped close. ‘A handy trick,’ someone said. Neferata cracked an eye.

Morath looked down at her, his blistered face twisted into a smile. Neferata pushed herself to her feet. ‘Was it? I have so many that I lose track,’ she said. She turned. The dwarfs were stubborn, but they were outnumbered and unprepared. Their horns were already calling for a retreat.

‘Your plan worked, I see,’ Morath said, leaning forwards across the pommel of his saddle. He didn’t ask how she had survived, or what had occurred since her disappearance.

‘Of course it did,’ she said, snatching up her sword and sheathing it. ‘They’ll fall back to the Deeping Stair. We need to harry them, to keep them from regrouping here. I want them running.’

‘Easily done, now that we have some room,’ Morath said, snatching at his reins and turning his mount. The dead pushed forwards, ignoring the impotent fury of their foes. The dwarfs gave ground grudgingly, but give ground they did. They had been thrown off their guard by Neferata’s sudden entry, and the Strigoi’s advent had prevented them from reforming the shield wall.

Corpse-wolves and mummified horsemen galloped past her, following the retreating dwarfs. She let them go. The army would be spread out across the hold, if she judged Khaled correctly. There would be more bastions of resistance than just here, but here was the main one. Here, at the heart of the hold, was where Borri would be. And Khaled wanted Borri. Khaled needed the king’s head and beard to establish himself as Ushoran’s right hand.

Her Kontoi had thrown himself into the snake-pit with his eyes wide open, and he knew well what would keep him from getting bitten. He would rise far. But never to where he desired. Not now. Not with the crown sitting on Ushoran’s brow, dictating the commands of a being better forgotten.

She smiled. She had seen the web for what it was, in the end, and seen the crown for the spider it pretended not to be. A trap by any other name; it was the soul of another dead man, trying to force her into his shadow.

Kings, undying or otherwise, had no use for a queen who spoke her mind. And Neferata had no use for kings. And soon, she would have no need to fear them. That was, if she didn’t die in the process.

Mounted on skeletal steeds, Khaled and Zandor rode towards her. Trust the Strigoi to stay close to his greatest rival. Both men displayed surprise at seeing her, and the latter showed a certain amount of trepidation. Perhaps it hadn’t been Khaled who had arranged for her to walk into an ambush after all.

‘Hail, my Kontoi,’ Neferata said, plucking a final bolt from her body.

‘I thought–’ Khaled began as he swung down off his steed. Zandor followed suit, frowning.

‘I know what you thought,’ Neferata said. ‘Yet here I am, my Kontoi, coming to your rescue again.’

‘Rescue,’ Khaled repeated, glaring at her.

‘Oh yes, though you don’t deserve it.’ She looked back and forth between them. ‘Which of you was it, I wonder, who decided to let me walk into a trap? Was it you, my Kontoi? Or was it perhaps you, Zandor?’ She leered at the Strigoi, who stepped back. ‘Regardless, the dwarfs are falling back to their final redoubt.’

‘Ushoran will be most pleased,’ Zandor said smugly. ‘You have done well, woman.’

Neferata didn’t reply. Khaled looked at her. ‘They’re retreating to their temples, aren’t they?’ he said, eyes glinting. ‘Zandor and I will take several of the Strigoi and cut them off. We can’t let them scurry into their damnable holes. I would be done with this.’

‘For once, we are of one mind,’ Neferata said. ‘There will be women and children in those temples. I want them alive.’

‘Why?’ Khaled said.

‘Because I have commanded such,’ she said, putting an edge to her words. ‘I intend to offer the dwarfs terms–’

‘What?’ Zandor snarled. ‘Who are you to–?’

‘I am Neferata of Lahmia,’ she snarled, backhanding the Strigoi and knocking him from his feet. She turned her glare on Khaled, pinning him in place before he could draw his sword. ‘That should be reason enough to do as I command. I want them alive, Khaled, alive and unharmed.’

Khaled stepped back and hauled Zandor to his feet. The Strigoi glared at her groggily, but said nothing as Khaled hauled him away. Neferata watched them go, and then said, ‘You can come out now, Anmar.’

The girl stepped out from the shadows of the gateway, her sword gripped loosely in her hand. ‘Who would you have helped, I wonder?’ Neferata said, turning to her. Anmar said nothing. She met Neferata’s eyes, but only for a moment.

‘Have I ever told you about my cousin?’ Neferata said. ‘Her name was–’

‘Yes, you have,’ Anmar said softly. Neferata stopped, nonplussed. ‘Why would you spare them?’

‘The dwarfs?’ Neferata said. Anmar nodded. Neferata smiled thinly. ‘Spite. Ushoran wants them exterminated. Thus, I will spare them.’ That and it would be easier to get the dwarfs to surrender if their loved ones were offered safe passage.

‘Is that why you tried to take the crown?’

Neferata hesitated. ‘Why are you asking this? Yes, girl, I wanted the crown for spite.’

‘Is that why you took me?’ Anmar said, shifting her sword in her grip.

‘I–’ Neferata hesitated again. What had got into the girl? ‘Anmar, you are my little leopard. I took you because I wanted to give you my gift.’ She stepped towards the girl. ‘Anmar–’

‘I must go. My brother will need me,’ Anmar said, slipping past Neferata and speeding after Khaled.

‘What would you have done if she’d helped him?’ Naaima said. Neferata turned and saw her oldest handmaiden picking her way across the bodies of the dead. Before Neferata could speak, Naaima continued. ‘The others are doing as you commanded, never fear. The Strigoi will never see them coming.’

‘Good.’ Neferata peered at her. ‘You will take Morath.’

‘I will be gentle,’ Naaima said, flashing a crooked smile.

Neferata nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her,’ she said finally. ‘She is as dear to me as my own sister.’

‘So was Khalida,’ Naaima said. ‘And when it was necessary, you snuffed her as if she were a flame.’ Naaima smiled sadly. ‘We are tools, Neferata. You call us sisters, but we are but pieces on your game-board. You collect us and hoard us, and sometimes you spend us. Sometimes you spend us for ambition. Other times, it is for spite.’

Neferata stared at her, stunned. Naaima stepped forwards and took her mistress’s face in her hands and kissed her softly on the cheek. ‘And we love you for it, because we cannot help but to do so. You unmake us as easily as Nagash’s crown threatened to unmake you, and remake us in your image.’ She stepped back and turned away.

Neferata watched her go, part of her wanting to batter the sad smile from Naaima’s face. But the other part, the cold, calculating part, merely made her nod. She pushed the distraction of it all aside. She trotted towards the ongoing battle, slowly at first, then picking up speed.

Neferata scanned the stairs with the eye of an experienced general as she ran. She had learned over the centuries to read the ebb and flow of battle as easily as Morath read his mouldy parchments. This was a fighting withdrawal. They had caught the dwarfs by surprise, and there simply weren’t enough of them to face a foe that was seemingly limitless, not to mention fearless. It would be a retreat, then, down to the next level where the final defences were likely already being prepared.

The dwarf rearguard on the Deeping Stair fought with tenacity, but the dead noticed only obstacles, not determination. The sheer number of skeletons and dwarf zombies pulled down the defenders, reducing them from a solid battle-line to struggling, fast-consumed knots of embattled heroes. Rune-weapons blazed in the hands of the mightiest warriors of the hold, and for a moment, just a moment, it seemed as if they might be enough.

King Borri stood amidst his bodyguard. He still held Razek’s axe and he gesticulated with it in the direction of the relentless legions stalking towards the dwarf ranks. Borri was as canny as his son, and the dwarfs of the Silver Pinnacle had fought the dead before. As Neferata watched, a dozen dwarfs ran forwards at Borri’s command, carrying bubbling cauldrons full of pitch. They slung them into the advancing dead. A moment later, crossbow bolts with burning tips were fired over the heads of Borri and his men.

The wide expanse of floor leading to the Deeping Stair exploded into flame. By itself, it wouldn’t have stopped the dead, but it did slow them down enough for the miniature catapults that had been dragged into position on the lower landing to be of use sooner rather than later. Irregular chunks of rock were flung into the air and where they struck, they left a trail of splintered bones and gaps in the ranks.

Morath winced at each impact. Neferata looked up at the necromancer as she reached his side, where he was surrounded by a grave-guard of skeletal horsemen clad in rotting leather and bronze armour that had gone green with age. ‘Pull them back,’ she said. ‘Between the heat and the rocks, the barrow-dead are too vulnerable.’

‘Then what do you suggest we send in their place, harsh language?’ Morath said, not looking at her. The strain of controlling so many dead was plainly visible on his face. Neferata caught sight of Naaima on his other side.

‘No, but there are a wealth of troops they might not be so eager to bounce rocks off,’ she countered, sweeping a hand out to indicate the dwarf dead. Morath blinked. Then he smiled weakly.

‘Ushoran was right to send you,’ he said. His smile faded. ‘I–’ he began, but she waved him to silence.

‘Raise them, necromancer. Set brother against brother. Let’s give our hosts something worthy to record in their pathetic book of complaints, shall we?’

Morath squared his shoulders and took a breath. Neferata felt him pluck the strands of dark magic that clustered near the bodies of the slain with his mind. He raised a hand, his fingers hooked like arthritic claws. Morath had changed much over the past few years. Only traces of his previous handsomeness remained; he was a shrivelled wreck now, but more mighty than he had been. With W’soran’s flight, the burden of Mourkain’s magical needs had fallen on Morath’s shoulders. He had kept the kingdom running, but only just.

In comparison, bringing the newly dead to their feet was as nothing. The dwarfs stirred, ruined mail scratching across stone. She inhaled the strange sickly-sweet scent of over-ripened life. Bloody fingers twitched and heels drummed on the floor. Eyelids peeled back from poached-egg eyes and as one, with a groan, the dead sat up. Gripping their weapons with slack necessity, the dead dwarfs turned as a mass towards Borri’s battleline.

The dirge, when it came, was something of a surprise: a collective song of mourning, slipping from the mouths of every dwarf still breathing. Neferata watched as the dwarfs faced their dead kin, singing their sad slow song, and she felt a moment of what might have been respect. There was no fear there, only sadness. The song rose in volume until the very stones seemed to reverberate with its rhythm.

The passage of the dead beat out the flames. Still, beards and braids caught alight, wreathing the zombies in halos of flame as they stumbled towards their former companions in a grim parody of martial discipline. Neferata heard the Strigoi howling in mockery and disgust filled her. This was a necessity, not a pleasure. In another, better world, the dawi would have been her allies. She glanced at Morath, noting the flat expression on his face.

The necromancer liked this no better than she, she knew. They were both prisoners of Ushoran’s madness, though Morath had chosen that fate willingly. She had offered him a place, and he had turned away out of loyalty to an ideal. ‘I could have been your queen,’ she murmured. Morath looked at her.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, necromancer. Stay back and leave the fighting to those with the thirst for it.’ Neferata trotted after the dwarf dead. She drank in the swirling winds of dark magic as she moved, using it to abate the thirst she felt. She felt her features stretch and sharpen and her muscles harden. She broke into a sprint as the first of the zombies connected with the dwarf battle-line. Others joined her – the Strigoi, shadowed by her own handmaidens, and around them, the war-ghouls of W’soran’s devising, their mammoth tread shaking the floor as they roared out unintelligible challenges to the enemy.

The two forces connected with a thunderclap. The dead were a wave washing over the rock that was the defenders of Karaz Bryn. Dwarfs fell, pulled down by the hands of their fellows or crushed by the hammers of the war-ghouls. Neferata bounded from the ground to a ghoul’s thigh and then off one of the great statues that stood sentinel over the stairs, landing near Borri. She had to force the king to flee. The Strigoi followed her like a pack of ravening hounds, avoiding the press of the fighting in order to reach the king and his guard.

Borri saw her in the instant before she reached him. He pivoted, nearly slicing her nose off with the axe, and then followed up with the hammer he wielded in his other hand, knocking her off her feet. She rolled beneath the feet of the attacking Strigoi as they flung themselves at the king’s guard with bestial abandon. Claws and swords clashed with ancient armour and ancestral hammers and the iron wall of dawi guards disintegrated into a melee within a melee.

Borri’s hammer shattered a Strigoi’s snarling face, sending the vampire hurtling backwards. Neferata ducked under the flailing body and brought her sword around, locking blade to haft with Borri’s hammer. He grunted as he realised her strength and crossed the hammer with the axe, glaring at her between them. ‘Treachery,’ he said. ‘You manlings know nothing but treachery.’

‘War,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Your son understood that.’

‘Razek had many faults,’ Borri said, shoving her back a step. Sweat coated his beard and ran down his seamed face. ‘That does not give you the right to insult him.’

Neferata redoubled her efforts. ‘Surrender, great king, and this can all end. Your son had to die, but your people do not,’ she said.

‘You truly know nothing of us,’ Borri said. His wrists bulged and suddenly the sword was ripped from her hands. The axe struck sparks from the collar and she cursed herself for underestimating the king. If he would not retreat willingly, she would have to force him. With a roar, she threw herself back, allowing two Strigoi who had been circling the fight to leap on the king and bear him down. Borri fell, bellowing in anger.

Neferata scrambled to her feet as those of the king’s guards not already engaged rushed to his aid. Hammers forced the Strigoi back, and a great crest of hair parted the warriors swirling around the king. Grund burst through the press, driving an elbow into a Strigoi’s mouth, shattering fangs.

He roared and chopped down, severing the other Strigoi’s leg at the thigh. The vampire shrilled and fell on top of the burly dwarf. Grund shoved the vampire aside and crushed its skull with his fist. He hacked at it wildly for good measure before turning to face her. ‘I said I’d have your head, witch, and I’ve only ever broken one oath,’ he roared.

‘Grund–’ Borri coughed as his men pulled him to his feet.

‘No!’ Grund snarled. ‘She’s mine, brother. Come, hag! Come, night-stalker! Fight me!’

Neferata wasted no words on the berserker. She didn’t want to kill Borri yet, but this creature would be better off dead. She stepped back, channelling the dark energies that invigorated her as Morath had showed her. She spat a stream of syllables and her eyes crackled with energy, which immediately burst forth in twin bolts. Grund swung his axe up and the energy flared, leaving char-marks on the flat of the blade. For a moment, as it steamed, she could see the tell-tale curl of runes.

Grund lowered the axe and grinned. He raced towards her. She stepped aside, avoiding the seemingly heedless charge, but not his hand as it snapped out and grabbed her hair. Grund set his feet and yanked her down and around, sending her crashing to the floor.

With one foot planted on her back, he raised his axe. Neferata scrabbled for her sword, which had fallen just out of her reach. Neferata’s fingers dug grooves in the stone as she tried to shake him loose but it was as if the mountain itself was holding her in place. Grund wanted her head and it looked as if he intended to have it.

As the axe fell, she squirmed beneath him and rolled onto her back. Her palms slapped tight on the axe. There was silver in it and her hands blistered as she strained against whatever magics had gone into crafting the blade. With a stifled snarl, she pulled it out of his grip and Grund, off balance, fell off her. His eyes bugged out and he screamed at her and lunged, fingers hooked like claws.

With a snarl of her own, she let the blade slide through her hands and grabbed the haft, swinging as her palms touched the leather bound tight around the wood. The axe chopped into the mad dwarf’s skull, bisecting his berserk features. He hurtled past her and fell. Neferata rose slowly to her feet. Borri was on his feet, his eyes solemn as he took in the body. ‘It was a good death. Your debt is discharged, brother,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘Yours is not.’

‘You are a hard people,’ Neferata said, looking at his guards. They were in the eye of the battle. Dwarfs fought grimly around them, trying to hold back the inevitable for just a few seconds more.

Borri spat a wad of blood and sputum at her feet. ‘We endure,’ he said.

‘Not for long.’ She looked past Borri. ‘Your people are in a place that I may not be able to enter,’ she said, gesturing to the temple of Valaya across the span of the bridge. ‘But reach them I will. I will butcher them, King of Karaz Bryn, your rinn and beardlings. Unless you surrender.’

Borri glared at her silently. She stepped forwards, ignoring the weapons of his guards. She stretched out a hand. ‘Your hold is lost, King. But a hold can be replaced. Can your people? What debt do you owe them, as king? Is dying here the way they expected that debt to be paid?’

His face hardened, but only for a moment. His shoulders slumped. ‘We must speak on this.’ He looked at her.

She inclined her head. ‘Pull back what forces remain to you, King Borri. Neferata of Lahmia will see that you have the time you require,’ she said haughtily. His guard surrounded him protectively as wailing war-horns signalled for retreat. The dwarf throng, what was left of it, was in full flight. The dead did not pursue. Instead they paused on the stairs in serried, silent ranks, staring ahead as their enemies retreated. A Strigoi – Dragoj, she thought – made to follow Borri’s retreating retinue and she stepped in front of him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Let them go.’

‘Are you mad?’ Dragoj snarled, his eyes bright with bloodlust. ‘We have them here, we must–’ He stopped abruptly and looked down at the sword-tip sprouting from his chest. ‘What?’ he gurgled as he reached out with a trembling finger to touch the blade.

Neferata’s reply was a swing of Grund’s axe. Dragoj’s head bounced across the stones, the startled expression still on his face. As his body slumped, she met Iona’s dark gaze. ‘Hello, little she-wolf,’ she said. The broken hafts of crossbow bolts protruded from Iona’s armour and body alike.

‘We have them,’ she said.

‘All of them?’

‘Save those few who are with Khaled. The rest are ours.’ Iona grinned. ‘They never even suspected until our blades were cutting their hamstrings.’

‘Kill them. All of them, and strip the fangs from their skulls. Ushoran will not fail to understand that message.’ Neferata paused, and then went on. ‘But first…’ She looked towards the temples. ‘First we must bring this to an end.’

She met with Naaima and the others on the edge of the last landing. The dead waited in patient ranks about them. ‘Where’s Morath?’ Neferata said. She still clutched Grund’s axe in her hands.

Naaima waved a hand towards the ranks of the dead. ‘He’s exhausted. I left him with Varna. She knows not to hurt him,’ she added quickly, before Neferata could protest. Neferata looked at her remaining handmaidens. She had entered with eleven, but only six remained. Of those, only two had accompanied Naaima. The others were busy with the Strigoi, and the screams echoed hellishly over the Deeping Stair.

Neferata ignored the noise. ‘We go. I want to see if our brave Kontoi managed to accomplish the task I set for him,’ she said.

‘What of the dead?’ Naaima said.

‘What of them?’ Neferata said, starting down the stairs. ‘Let them stay as they are, to remind the dwarfs that there is no escape. Borri can’t have more than a hundred warriors left, and most of those will be wounded. No. We’ve won. Let us be graceful in victory,’ she continued. Naaima and the others hurried after her.

It wasn’t until they drew closer to the temples that they heard the screams. They were not the wails of frightened women and children. Instead, they were the full-throated howls of men driven past the breaking point. Weapons rattled and the howls of corpse-wolves echoed through the streets of the temple district.

Neferata cursed. She broke into a run, her sword in her hand. The four vampires sped through the streets towards the sounds, and Neferata’s curses degenerated into shrieks of rage as she saw that Khaled had indeed accomplished his task, and more besides.

The refugees had not reached safety. Khaled and Zandor had been quicker than the dwarfs, and the latter had paid for it. Neferata stalked into the plaza in front of the temple of Valaya. It was carpeted with the bodies of slain. Little bodies, some of them, impossibly little; and something in Neferata curdled and she was once more in Lahmia, watching as the soldiers of Rasetra and Khemri and Lybaras snatched Lahmian children from their wailing mothers and swung them by their ankles against the walls of houses.

Borri and his men had obviously arrived too late to rescue any of their loved ones. Instead they had been met by the silent menace of the tortured spirit-hosts drawn from the bodies of the dead. The ghosts of women and children and dead warriors swept across the great plaza, surrounding an imposing structure which Neferata thought must be the temple to either Grimnir or Grungni.

‘They ran in there, the little fools,’ Khaled said. ‘Then, who can blame them, eh?’

Neferata spun. Khaled sat on a dwarf cart, his mouth and chest wet with blood. His gloves were soaked in it and he smiled at her. He cut his eyes to the spirit-host and licked his lips. ‘You weren’t the only one who learned from Morath. I was quite the connoisseur of such things, before… Well.’ He gestured to himself. Neferata caught sight of Anmar behind him, and Zandor. Redzik was there was as well, and four other Strigoi. Dead wolves prowled among the corpses and slobbering ghouls squabbled over the choice bits.

‘What have you done?’ Neferata hissed.

Khaled hopped to his feet. ‘What I was commanded to do, by my master,’ he snarled. He pointed at her. ‘What you were commanded to do!’

‘No one commands me,’ she said. ‘Not Nagash, not Ushoran and certainly not you, princeling!’

‘I told you,’ Zandor spat. ‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted. Kill her, Arabyan!’

Khaled hesitated, his expression shifting.

‘Ushoran is not here, Khaled,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Can you feel his influence? I cannot. He has no power here. He cannot command us.’

Khaled looked at her. Anmar hurried to his side. ‘Brother, if she’s right–’

‘Quiet,’ Khaled snapped. ‘I need to think, I–’

‘No! No more thinking, no more talk!’ Zandor snarled. He leapt for Neferata as the other Strigoi converged on Naaima and the others. As Zandor crashed against her, the doors to the great temple where Borri and his remaining men had retreated boomed open and off their hinges, shattering the stillness of the mountain.

A maggot-infested wolf bounded towards the opening and was crushed by an expertly wielded hammer. A shorn-scalped dwarf stepped into view, his hair and beard shaved. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. He held his hammer in one hand as he tore feverishly at the clasps of his armour.

Another dwarf, similarly shaved and bare-chested, followed. Then another and another, dozens, the last survivors of Karaz Bryn, their beards shaved and oaths to Grimnir on their tongues as they discarded their armour with ritualistic contempt. Some had daubed strange markings on their flesh in soot and blood and the eerie dirge that swept from them chilled even Neferata’s heart.

She knew then that there would be no surrender. No mercy.

‘What–?’ Zandor began, staring at them in shock. His hands hung limply around Neferata’s neck. ‘Are they mad?’

‘Yes,’ Neferata said, and rammed her fist through his chest. Zandor screamed in shock and pain as her fingers sought his heart. She seized it and jerked it free of his chest. The Strigoi staggered back. Neferata crushed his heart before his disbelieving eyes. ‘I told you to remember my hand on your heart, Zandor,’ she hissed.

Zandor lunged with an inarticulate cry and Neferata brought Grund’s axe up and buried it in the Strigoi’s skull as he knocked her to the ground. Before she could get up Khaled’s sword sank through the meat of her thigh, pinning her leg to the floor. She screamed. Her scream was echoed by the dwarfs as they charged forwards to meet the ghosts and ghouls and dead warriors that sprang into action at Khaled’s barked order. The dead and the suicidal crashed together like opposing ocean waves, and hymns to Grimnir buffeted her ears as she grabbed for the sword.

‘No,’ Khaled said, stepping back, his expression torn between satisfaction and disgust. ‘No. You won’t wriggle free of this trap.’

Neferata twisted, but the sword was in an awkward place. She couldn’t reach it. Khaled, oblivious to the fighting going on around them, squatted before her, grabbing her chin as she had so often grabbed his. ‘Was that what I was? A trap?’ he sneered. ‘Are all men traps, my lady? Is that why you could not accept what I offered you?’

‘You’re no trap, Khaled. You’re simply a fool,’ Neferata hissed, grabbing his wrist. ‘You offered nothing. You wanted everything and I give nothing.’ Khaled jerked back, trying to free his hand from her grip. Flailing for a weapon, he snatched up the axe, jerking it out of Zandor’s skull. The silver wept smoke as it exited the vampire and it trailed it down as Khaled lashed out at her. She twisted.

The axe struck her, gashing the flesh of her throat. Suddenly she was choking on her own blood and she released Khaled and squirmed around, leg still pinned to the floor, clutching at her throat. Khaled gave a scream of fury and prepared to deliver another blow.

‘No!’

Khaled whirled as the sword gouged across his side. He swept the axe down into the chest of his attacker. Anmar coughed and fell back. ‘No,’ Khaled said. ‘Oh no, no, no…’ He stooped and tried to pull his sister to her feet, but the axe was buried to the haft in her heart. Smoke and steam rose from the wound and from her mouth and nose and eyes as she twitched and thrashed. In her final moments, she reached for her mistress as Neferata rose unsteadily to her feet, Khaled’s sword in one bloody hand. Neferata’s pain-filled writhing had dislodged the blade finally, and now she held it tightly.

‘Goodbye, little leopard,’ Neferata said, and drove the sword down through Khaled’s body, into his sister’s and on into the rock below. Khaled made no sound as his sister expired and the rot that claimed all vampires upon death set in, reducing her form to what it would have been had she lived a mortal life. Khaled shuddered, pinned in place by the sword, unable to look away.

Neferata kicked the axe out of his reach and turned. Borri’s men were fewer in number than they had first seemed, and though they fought as berserkers, the dead were numberless. Ghostly hands plucked at bare flesh, drawing the last dregs of life from the warriors.

‘Neferata of Lahmia, I declare you oath-breaker and murderer,’ a harsh voice rasped. Neferata turned. Her handmaidens still battled the Strigoi. She was alone.

‘Borri,’ she said, reaching for the sword still sheathed on her hip. The king had doffed his armour, as had his remaining warriors, and his barrel chest was streaked with blood. He still carried his son’s axe. ‘We can still end this without further bloodshed.’

‘Your name has been entered in the book,’ he said. Then he charged. Neferata barely blocked the blow and spun, dancing around the dwarf as he chopped at her in grim silence. Soon Borri was puffing and stumbling. The exertions of the day had taken their toll. ‘You have murdered us,’ he gasped, lashing out at her. ‘You have torn out the heart of our hold and condemned us to wander.’

Neferata avoided a wild blow. ‘You have condemned my son to wander!’ Borri roared, flinging the axe at her as she stepped back. She swatted the axe aside.

Borri tensed. His hands clutched emptily, and he glanced at the axe where it had fallen. Neferata shook her head. ‘You won’t reach it.’

Borri said nothing. Neferata sighed. ‘Honour is a burden a ruler can ill afford. It is a weight on the soul and the mind.’

‘Kill me and be done, witch.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, Borri. If I did, I would have let Zandor and his bone-eating cronies do the job for me,’ she snapped, gesturing to the mangled corpse of the Strigoi. ‘I want you alive. I want your people alive. Together, we can–’

‘No,’ Borri said.

Neferata stopped. ‘What?’

‘No.’ He looked at her pityingly. ‘Your name has been entered into the Book of Grudges, Neferata of Lahmia. There can be no end other than the settling of the debt.’

‘I’m offering you mercy, King Borri. I am offering you the lives of those of your people who survive. And all I ask is that you–’ she said, bewildered.

‘The living do not serve the dead,’ Borri said.

‘You dwarfs do nothing but serve your dead,’ Neferata spat. ‘This whole place is nothing but a tomb! It’s a monument to a failed race!’

‘Then let it be our tomb,’ Borri said simply.

Neferata closed her mouth. She looked away. ‘Is that your answer?’

‘There can be no other,’ Borri said. Then, with a grunt, he leapt for the axe. Neferata whirled, reaching for him. Borri ripped the axe up and rolled across the floor, springing to his feet as Neferata swooped over him. He set his feet and swung his son’s axe. Neferata screamed as the axe chopped into her shoulder and the silver threads that ran through it burned her. Her fist punched through Borri’s torso, erupting from his back in a splatter of blood. Borri grunted and his trembling arm sawed at her shoulder, trying to reach her heart even in his final moments. Neferata gasped and grabbed his face with her free hand and ripped the dwarf away from her, flinging him backwards. He landed in a bloody heap some distance away and she wrenched the axe from her body, screaming again as smoke escaped from the wound. Still holding the axe she stumbled towards him, intending to bury the weapon in his skull.

But there was no need. Borri was dead. Neferata sank to her haunches and placed the axe between his hands. She stood, one hand holding the wound on her shoulder closed.

She turned towards the battle, her face settling into a still mask as she started forwards. The war was over. All that was left was the massacre.

It had all led to this moment, every struggle and every scheme. She had ever sought a place from which to rule, to command. But always they had been taken from her. Always, outside events had interfered. Lahmia, Bel Aliad, Sartosa, Mourkain, memories and false-starts all, she knew that now. The dead could not rule the living.

But she would rule nonetheless. She would rule this place. She would make it a fortress, a temple to ambition and a refuge from a world whose tides and tempests she would set right. A dwarf roared and swung a hammer at her. She caught the weapon and drove its haft into the berserker’s belly, rupturing organs and breaking bones. She kicked the dwarf aside and met their hymns with the war-song of lost Lahmia.

She would see to it that that song was sung again, in the years to come. The ghost of Lahmia would find rest here, within these sheltering halls. A dwarf screamed wildly and drove a broken spear into her hip. Neferata broke his neck and threw the body into the air. More dwarfs charged forwards, seeking death and absolution.

Neferata was happy enough to give them the former.

Blood filled her vision, sweeping away all doubt and ambition. She snarled and spat and screeched, less a woman than some great veldt cat driven past hunger into madness. The dead fell around her, their remorseless march stalled and stopped by the berserkers who tangled their dying bodies in spears and among legs, dragging blazing-eyed ghouls down beneath the press with a final spasm of insane strength.

Soon Neferata was alone, a pale wraith stalking dunes of dead flesh, her fangs popping from her mouth, her tongue long and lashing as she drank the thick, heady brew from her blade. One dwarf left, screaming and bulge-eyed, so far gone in shame and hate that he did not realise that he was alone.

She parried his axe and brought her sword up through his barrel chest, lifting him off his feet. As the dwarf’s blood gushed down her arm to splash across the stone, Neferata leaned close to one club-ear and whispered, ‘I am queen.’ The words sounded hollow in the sudden silence.

The dwarf’s only reply was a death-rattle.

Neferata stood for a time, looking down at the body. The last defender was dead. The Silver Pinnacle had fallen.

Long live New Lahmia.