Akhmen-hotep took a menacing step towards his older brother.
“Then make it shine again,” he snarled.
The Grand Hierophant started to protest, but suddenly a faint, skirling sound rose wild and clear above the tumult, echoing from the dunes to the west. Heads turned, searching for the source of the sound. Sukhet, whose ears were keener by the grace of his god, cocked his head attentively.
“Horns,” he said, “but made of bone, not bronze.”
“Another trick of the Usurper?” Memnet asked.
“No, not this time,” Akhmen-hotep said. His face creased in a triumphant smile. “The princes of Bhagar have arrived at last!”
Three-quarters of a mile distant, hidden from sight by the Usurper’s unnatural shadow, four thousand robed horsemen rode out of the blinding desert sands, hastening to the fight. The merchant princes of Bhagar had sent every fighting man they could spare to aid their allies in the struggle against Nagash, and there were no better horsemen in all the Blessed Land. In ancient times, they had been bandits, preying upon Nehekharan caravans and slipping like ghosts back into the dunes, but in the time of Settra they had been tamed and welcomed into the Empire. Since then, they had prospered as traders, but they had never forgotten their warlike ways.
The horsemen of Bhagar knew the Great Desert as a man knows his first wife. They were privy to its changing ways and its fierce temper, its hidden gifts and shadowy secrets, and yet, as they rode to the aid of Ka-Sabar, they were bedevilled again and again by fierce sandstorms and false trails that cost them precious days amid the burning sands. When their outriders caught sight of the spreading darkness staining the horizon, they had feared the worst, and pushed their fiery desert steeds to the utmost.
Led by the bold Shahid ben Alcazzar, first among equals in Bhagar and called the Red Fox by his kin, the desert horsemen plunged fearlessly into the unnatural darkness hanging over the great plain, and found themselves behind a swirling mass of cavalrymen threatening the Bronze Host’s left flank. Calling upon the spirits of their ancestors, they winded their bone war horns and raced into battle. The lead riders drew short, barbed javelins from quivers hanging by their knees and let fly into the packed mass of heavy horsemen, while those further behind unlimbered powerful composite horse bows and thick, red-fletched arrows. The powerful missiles could punch through a wooden shield at forty paces, and the riders knew how to use them to deadly effect.
The sudden attack sowed death and confusion among the enemy ranks, and the squadrons of heavy horsemen scattered before the onslaught. Swift as a pack of wolves, the desert raiders wheeled about and dashed back the way they’d come, leaving a hundred dead cavalrymen littering the bloody ground. Then, after a hundred yards they stopped, turned about, and came at the enemy once more, weaving effortlessly among the heavier warhorses and toppling men from their saddles. Furious, the Khemri horsemen tried to give chase, and the desert raiders began, slowly but surely, to draw them off to the west, away from the embattled spear companies.
Arkhan heard the wailing horns of the desert riders just as he began his charge, and realised the peril his warriors were in. They were caught between two enemy forces, and if the chariots could regroup and charge his men once more, they could very well break under the pressure. Without warning, the tide of battle threatened to turn against them.
Hissing like an adder, the vizier bore down on Suseb the Lion. The champion of the Bronze Host likewise ordered his chariot forward, raising his mighty khopesh. The archer beside him raised his bow, but Suseb stopped him with a forbidding glare. This would be a battle between heroes, or so the Lion thought.
As the distance between them dwindled, Arkhan began to chant. He felt the dark power bubbling in his veins, and at the last moment he stretched out his left hand and unleashed a storm of crackling ebon bolts at the occupants of the chariot. Screams and shouts of fury answered the vizier as he veered away from the onrushing chariot and its scything blades.
After a dozen yards, he swung about and saw that the champion’s armoured chariot had come to a halt. Its driver lay at Suseb’s feet, his body a smoking husk, and the Lion was struggling to untangle the chariot’s reins from the corpse’s shrivelled hands. The champion’s archer, meanwhile, leapt from the back of the chariot and stood between Arkhan and his foe. The vizier laughed at the sight and spurred his mount forward.
The bowman was a man of courage. His face was a mask of rage, but he moved with calm efficiency, drawing a long reed arrow to his cheek and letting fly at the onrushing immortal. Arkhan jerked the reins at the last minute, trying to dodge aside, and the arrow struck him in the left arm instead of burying itself in his heart.
Before the archer could draw another arrow, Arkhan was upon him. His scimitar hissed through the air, and the bowman’s headless body fell forward into the dust.
The archer’s death had given the Lion the time he needed, however, and with an angry cry he lashed the reins and the chariot lurched into motion once more. Suseb handled the huge machine masterfully, turning it in a tight circle, but not before Arkhan dashed past. Once again, his scimitar whirred in a decapitating arc, but the blade shivered in his hand as though he’d struck solid teak. The Lion, it appeared, ranked high in the earth god’s favour.
Despite the speed of Arkhan’s charge he still felt the wind of Suseb’s blade slicing through the air a fraction of an inch behind him. He continued on past the champion for less than ten feet before hauling furiously on the reins. His steed tossed its head angrily and pawed at the earth as the vizier hauled it back around for another pass.
Suseb was still struggling to control the chariot with one hand while looking over his shoulder at Arkhan. He was bringing the war machine about, but too slowly. Grinning like a devil, Arkhan bore down on the Lion’s back, sword poised above his head. Once again he began to chant. Wisps of foul, black vapour began to curl from the edge of his blade.
The Lion watched the vizier approach with an expression of stoic resolve. At the last moment, Arkhan’s sense of triumph turned to trepidation. When Suseb let go of the chariot’s reins he knew that he’d been tricked. The champion became a blur of motion, spinning on his heel and bringing his massive sword around in a whirling, backhanded blow.
It was only the immortal’s unnatural reflexes that saved him. He tore at the reins, once more, and the warhorse’s charge was halted for the space of a single moment. Suseb’s blade fell in a glittering arc, passing before Arkhan instead of through him, and sliced through the animal’s thick neck instead. The horse’s headless body lurched drunkenly to the right, sending mount and rider crashing full-force into the Lion’s chariot. There was the sound of splintering wood and tearing metal. Arkhan struck the side of the war machine in a bone-crushing impact and knew no more.
A cheer went up from the beleaguered ranks of the Bronze Host at the sound of Bhagar’s war horns. Their allies had arrived in the nick of time, just where they were needed. Akhmen-hotep felt a wild surge of hope. Could they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
The priest king regarded Memnet and Sukhet once more.
“You see? The gods have not abandoned us!” he said. “Now it is up to us to show that we are worthy of their aid. Call upon their power, and let us destroy the Usurper once and for all!”
A terrible look came over Sukhet’s face as he heard Akhmen-hotep’s plea, but he nodded nevertheless.
“So be it,” he said in a leaden voice, and led his priests some distance away to begin the invocations.
The priest king turned to Memnet, and asked, “And what of you, Grand Hierophant? Will the Great Father Ptra aid us in our time of need?”
Memnet stepped close to the king.
“Don’t take that tone with me, little brother,” he said in a low voice. “Did you not hear Sukhet? The gods are not soldiers to be commanded, like your warriors. They will exact a heavy price for such power, and we will be the ones to pay it, not you!”
The king was unmoved.
“If you fear to call upon your god, Memnet, then go and bend your knee to Nagash. Those are the only choices any of us have left.”
Memnet’s face twisted into a mask of rage, so sudden and so intense that the Ushabti took a protective step towards the king, his fleshy hands clenching into trembling fists. The Grand Hierophant’s jaw bunched angrily, but when he spoke, it wasn’t to utter imprecations against the priest king. Instead, he began to chant in a heated voice.
Akhmen-hotep saw beads of sweat gather on Memnet’s round face, and then felt a puff of hot air brush against his skin that quickly became a whirling, restless wind. The clacking, chattering cloud of darkness overhead roiled like a stormy sea. Narrow spears of fierce sunlight stabbed through the churning mass, touching the ground for an instant before the shadow swallowed them. Black, smouldering shapes fell to the earth around Akhmen-hotep and his warriors in a steadily building rain. The king realised that they were the husks of tomb scarabs, each as large as a grown man’s fist.
Memnet’s voice grew louder, rising over the howling wind in counterpoint to Sukhet’s piercing, nasal voice. The priest of Phakth, the sky god, sounded as though he were in terrible pain.
Akhmen-hotep started as he felt his ears pop, and then he heard his soldiers cry out in fear and awe as a forked bolt of lightning crashed down on the distant ridge.
The crash of thunder that followed sounded like the end of the world.
Arkhan’s eyes snapped open at the crescendo of noise, the thunder’s concussion so great that for a moment the vizier thought someone had struck him.
He was lying on his back a few yards from the twisted wreckage of his enemy’s chariot. The impact of his dead horse had splintered the war machine’s left wheel and flipped the heavy vehicle onto its side, and the four horses that had drawn it were galloping away in terror, dragging the broken yoke behind them. Horses and men were screaming all around him in the gloom, and his cavalry, beset from two sides, were struggling to survive.
Cursing, Arkhan struggled to regain his feet. His right leg was weak and stiff. Belatedly, he realised that a dagger-sized shard of bronze was jutting from his right thigh. He tore it free with his left hand and forced himself upright. A shudder passed through the immortal, and he felt the familiar, dreadful ache begin in his guts. The exertions and the wounds he’d received had consumed much of his master’s vital elixir, and a deadly lassitude began to steal along his limbs.
Feeling a tremor of fear, Arkhan surveyed the wreckage of Suseb’s chariot. Had the champion survived?
He saw the mass of wood and metal shift. Twisted bronze plates groaned and popped, and Arkhan felt a surge of dread as the Lion’s head and shoulders struggled into view.
Desperate, the vizier raised his sword and chanted the Incantation of Summoning. The dark magic was fickle, resisting his control due to his weakened state, but three of Arkhan’s dead cavalrymen stirred and struggled to their feet.
“Kill him!” the vizier commanded, pointing to Suseb.
The undead warriors lurched forwards. One cavalryman pulled a javelin from his chest and hurled it at the pinned champion. It struck Suseb in the left shoulder, piercing his armour but not the blessed flesh beneath. The Lion roared in anger and redoubled his efforts, pushing himself onto his knees. With his right hand, he tore a jagged piece of bronze plate from the wreckage and hurled it end-over-end at the nearest walking corpse. The impact crushed the revenant’s skull, dashing it to the ground.
Cursing, Arkhan charged in alongside his remaining warriors, hoping to slay the champion before he could free himself.
One of the dead cavalrymen lunged at Suseb, chopping down at him with an axe. The stone blade glanced from the Lion’s skull, leaving a shallow gash along the side of his head. The other reached for the champion’s throat with bloodied hands. Suseb grabbed the empty-handed creature by the arm and hurled it into the axe-wielding warrior’s path. The clumsy revenants tangled together and fell in a squirming heap, and before they could rise again the Lion snatched up his massive khopesh and cut through both bodies in a single, ringing stroke.
Sensing an opening, Arkhan leapt forwards and slashed at Suseb’s face. The champion saw the blow coming and tried to twist away, but the scimitar left a deep slash across the warrior’s brown cheek. The vizier laughed at the sight of the wound, but his triumph was short-lived. The Lion’s khopesh flickered through the air, and the immortal darted backwards barely in time to avoid having both legs cut from under him.
With a lusty roar, Suseb flexed his powerful legs and burst free from the wreckage. His huge sword wove a deadly pattern through the air as he advanced fearlessly upon the vizier.
“Vile, godless coward,” he growled. “It’s a disgrace to stain my blade with such an unworthy foe, but I’ll do it gladly if it will rid the world of you and your ilk.”
Arkhan spat a swift incantation and hurled a bolt of necromantic power at the Lion. It struck Suseb full in the chest. The champion bellowed in pain, but continued his implacable advance.
Another bolt of lightning smote the earth, this time striking in the midst of a company of Khemri warriors near the centre of the battleline. Shouts of wonder and dismay were drowned in the peal of thunder that followed.
Then, to Arkhan’s horror, a shaft of sunlight pierced his master’s shroud of darkness and glinted from the Lion’s blade. His cold flesh trembled at the sight, and for the first time he feared the possibility of defeat.
An angry wind rushed northward across the battlefield, howling with the fury of a god. Lightning scourged the earth like a taskmaster’s lash, clawing along the ridge line amid a growing hail of burning scarab husks. More and more sunlight made its way through the writhing cloud, striking down the walking dead wherever it touched.
Within the black pavilion, a crowd of slaves grovelled in the dust before the king’s grim sarcophagus and begged for their deliverance. In the shadows at the back of the chamber, the Usurper’s ancient slave turned his blind face skywards and uttered a terrible, croaking laugh.
There was a hiss of air and the grating of stone, and the lid of the king’s sarcophagus slid open. A shrieking chorus of tormented spirits and a gust of freezing air washed over the terrified slaves, who raised their hands in supplication to their lord and master.
Nagash the Immortal, Priest King of Khemri, stepped from his ensorcelled coffin amid a whirling nimbus of shrieking souls. Wreathed in roiling, ethereal vapour, the master of the Living City paid no heed to the worshipful entreaties of his slaves. Green bale-fire blazed from his sunken eyes and crackled along the staff of dark metal clutched in his left hand. The faces of the four skulls that topped the fearsome stave glimmered with unearthly power, blurring the air around it.
The king’s handsome, lined face and strong hands were the colour of alabaster, gleaming like polished bone from the folds of his dark, crimson robes. His bald head was covered by a skullcap of hammered gold, inscribed with strange glyphs in a tongue unknown to civilised men.
Cowering slaves scattered from the immortal king’s path as Nagash turned to the smaller sarcophagus that waited beside his own. The figure carved upon its surface was serene and beautiful: a goddess of the Blessed Land in the bloom of her youth.
A cold smile bent the necromancer’s thin lips. He stretched forth his right hand, and the spirits surrounding him flowed down his arm and played across the coffin’s surface. The marble lid shivered, and then slowly drew aside.
A faint, tortured moan rose up from the depths of the sarcophagus. Nagash listened, savouring the sound. His smile turned cruel.
“Come forth,” he commanded. The king’s voice was bubbling and raspy, wheezing up from a pair of ruined lungs.
Slowly, painfully, the figure emerged. She was clad in priceless samite, with a queen’s golden headdress set upon her brow. Bracelets set with brilliant sapphires hung from her fragile wrists, wrinkling the dry, parchment-like skin beneath. She clutched her claw-like hands painfully to he
r withered chest, and her head was bowed beneath the weight of her royal finery. Wisps of faded, brittle hair had escaped from the folds of her headdress and curled against her sunken, yellowed cheeks. Time had eaten away the gentle curves of her face, leaving only sharp edges and a thin, almost lipless mouth. Her joints creaked like dried leather as she moved, drawn to the necromancer as though by an invisible cord.
Bright, beautiful green eyes shone like emeralds from the queen’s mummified face, etched with suffering so deep that it defied human comprehension.
The slaves grew silent as their queen walked among them. They buried their faces in the dust and pressed their hands to their ears to shut out her pitiful cries.
Nagash waved his hand once more, and the tent’s heavy flap was pushed aside. He led his queen into the raging tumult, heedless of the wrath of gods or men. The necromancer looked out across the battlefield, and his smile twisted into a hateful sneer.
“Show them,” he commanded his queen, and she raised her withered arms to the sky and let out a long, heartrending wail.
Akhmen-hotep felt the change, more than a mile away. The wind and the lightning stopped in a single instant, so suddenly that the king found himself questioning his senses. Then the rustling darkness overhead seemed to swell, filling his ears with its buzzing drone, and the priests began to scream.
He had turned his back on Sukhet and Memnet when the fire and lightning had begun, leaving them to their incantations while he tried to gauge their effect upon the battle. Now he whirled at their agonised cries, and saw that both men had fallen to their knees. A shiver went down the king’s spine at the look of absolute horror writ upon their faces.
“What is it?” he asked. “In the name of all the gods, what’s happened?”
For a moment, it seemed that neither man heard him. Then Memnet whispered, “We are undone.”
“Undone?” the priest king echoed. Mounting fear tightened like a fist around his heart. “What does that mean? Tell me!”
[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer Page 7