“And the ringleaders?”
“Some have been captured,” Raamket said. “Others took their lives before we could seize them. The rest have fled the city.”
“How can you be so certain?” Nagash asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Raamket shrugged, and said, “Because we have not found them, master. The city has been searched thoroughly, from one end to the other.” A faint smile crossed the immortal’s stolid face. “I personally questioned many of the city’s merchants. They swore that many of the priests fled east, towards Quatar.”
Nagash considered the news. “Relax our patrols,” he ordered, “and then offer a double ration of grain for anyone that offers information on dissenters still hidden in the city. If there are any rebels left they will grow bold once they learn that the White Palace has fallen.”
Raamket’s dark eyes glittered at the sudden news.
“The east has risen against us?” he asked. The savage immortal sounded pleased at the prospect.
“Lybaras and Rasetra have chosen to defy me,” the king answered darkly, “and I suspect they are not alone.”
Nagash set off quickly towards the steps to Settra’s Court, leaving the servants to surround the queen and escort her into the palace. Raamket fell into step behind his master. “How shall we deal with these traitors?” the warrior asked.
“Send messengers to Numas and Zandri,” Nagash commanded. “Summon the kings to attend upon me at Settra’s Court in four days’ time to attend a council of war. Quatar will be retaken, and then the east will drown in a sea of blood.”
Raamket smiled, revealing white teeth filed to needle-sharp points, and said, “It will be done, master.”
EIGHT
Red Rain
The desert city of Bhagar, in the 62nd year of Qu’aph the Cunning
(-1750 Imperial Reckoning)
On the morning of the fifth day, Arkhan’s horsemen crested the dunes east of Bhagar and found Shahid ben Alcazzar and his horsemen awaiting them just beyond the green expanse of the city’s caravanserai.
The vizier reined in his rune-marked warhorse at the top of the furthest dune and spat a stream of incredulous curses into the shadow-bound sky. He had pushed his warriors relentlessly, pausing only at dawn and dusk to open the Jars of Night and then seal them up again. He killed horses and men by the score along the way, returning their corpses to the ranks when their exhausted bodies could withstand no more. Still others were sacrificed to the ravening scarabs. Their bones now gleamed white in the preternatural gloom, knit together by black sorcery alone. All so that he could outpace ben Alcazzar’s horsemen and strike at their home before they could mount a proper defence, and yet they had still managed to outpace him!
When he’d run out of curses to hurl at the uncaring heavens, Arkhan sat back in his saddle and took quick stock of his situation. His horsemen, almost two thousand in all, were spread in a rough arc along the line of dunes to his left and right. Five hundred yards distant, the desert raiders waited in a ragged line, grouped around the fluttering banners of their chieftains. Arkhan’s advance guard, consisting of little more than two hundred horsemen, formed a thin screen in the middle ground between the two forces.
“Signal Shepsu-hur to fall back,” the vizier ordered, gesturing angrily to his trumpeter. Nodding wearily, the musician brought the horn to his lips and blew a complex series of notes. Within moments, the advance guard was withdrawing across the rolling terrain. Arkhan noted that the desert raiders made no attempt to pursue.
Shepsu-hur left his horsemen at the bottom of the dune and spurred his struggling mount up the sandy slope to make his report. The immortal was wrapped in bindings of linen and leather from neck to toe, covering nearly every inch of his exposed skin. Only his ruined face was left uncovered, revealing the terrible injuries he’d received in the battle at the palace only a few weeks before. No amount of Nagash’s sorcerous elixir had been enough to seal up the gaping wounds in the nobleman’s cheeks and forehead, or restore his shrivelled lips and the ragged stub of his nose. Charred bone showed through the tear in the immortal’s square chin as he spoke.
“The horsemen arrived less than an hour ahead of us,” the maimed immortal rasped. “Some of them withdrew into the city when we arrived.”
“No doubt telling their kin to flee into the desert,” Arkhan said. He knew that some of the citizens would escape; it could not be avoided. The people of Bhagar were devout followers of Khsar, and they knew the ways of the desert well. Most, however, were trapped. If they tried to run, his men would ride them down. “How many riders?” he asked.
Leather wrappings creaked as the immortal shrugged.
“Perhaps three thousand,” he said, “but their horses are blown. They pushed themselves past the point of exhaustion getting here ahead of us.”
“Then this won’t last long,” the vizier said, nodding grimly.
Drawing his huge khopesh, Arkhan called to his trumpeter. “Sound the charge!” he commanded. “We will press on to the city, regardless of the cost!”
Trumpet notes sang their clarion call along the dunes, and the mass of horsemen started to move down the sandy slope. Shepsu-hur wheeled his mount and raced ahead to catch up with his squadron. Arkhan kneed his warhorse forwards at a trot, his attendants closing ranks around him.
Bhagar was a prosperous city, but a small one. Its princes had nothing to fear from bandits, and it had never been so wealthy as to attract the attention of the larger cities to the north and the east. As a result, its leaders had never seen the need to spend vast sums building a wall around the city. Now, its horsemen tried to form a living barrier against the vizier’s warriors, but Arkhan could see how the proud raiders slumped in their saddles, and the heads of their magnificent horses hung low to the ground. Better for Shahid ben Alcazzar to have preserved his men, Arkhan thought. He might not have saved his city, but at least he might have lived to avenge it another day. Now the proud desert prince would die along with them.
The Khemri horsemen spread out across the rolling, sandy terrain as they reached the bottom of the dunes, the immortals leading the way, followed by the grim, silent corpses of men that had belonged to their squadrons. The living cavalrymen fell behind, unnerved by the dead comrades riding in their midst. Far ahead, the proud desert horses of their enemies tossed their heads and pawed at the sand as the scent of rotting flesh reached them.
Still, the desert raiders waited, taking no action as their foes drew nearer. Arkhan peered through the gloom with his one eye, trying to locate ben Alcazzar and his retinue. What was the prince’s standard? The vizier couldn’t recall.
Three hundred yards… two hundred and fifty. Maddened shouts and wailing cries went up from the immortals, and the horses quickened their pace to a canter. A shadow passed over the desert raiders as the leading edge of the scarab cloud swept over them. Arkhan watched them become forbidding silhouettes, standing starkly against the lush greenery of the caravan oasis at their back.
Then, a figure at the rear of the desert horsemen raised a shining scimitar to the heavens. It caught the last of the sunlight, flashing with Ptra’s angry fire, and then Arkhan heard a faint shout that cut through the mounting thunder of hoof beats.
A hot wind hissed through the oncoming cavalry. Arkhan felt its rasping touch slide across his cheeks. Then the hissing rose to a full-throated roar, and the world disappeared in a raging maelstrom of sand.
Arkhan raised a hand to his face with a bitter curse. Horses and men screamed in surprise and fright. The sandstorm lashed at exposed skin with a million invisible knives, clothing and even leather fraying beneath its unrelenting touch. The vizier’s ensorcelled mount reared and tossed its head in pain. Arkhan pulled savagely at the reins and fought to keep his seat.
The onslaught lasted only a few seconds. It crashed through the Khemri force with all the power of a cavalry charge, and when the wall of sand had swept past, the heavy cavalry was scattered and disoriented, their
forward momentum lost. The next sound they heard was the deadly hum of arrows and the spine-chilling wail of the desert raiders as they charged in behind Khsar’s savage wind.
Shahid ben Alcazzar was called the Red Fox for a reason. Though nearly spent, the horsemen of Bhagar were far from helpless.
A hail of arrows and throwing javelins raked the stunned Khemri force. Men and animals fell to the ground, dead or thrashing in their death throes. Then the charge of the desert raiders struck home, and bronze clashed against bronze in a swirling, furious melee.
The ferocity of the Bhagar attack might have broken the Khemri force at the outset, had the riders all been living flesh and blood, but the immortals and their dead warriors were impervious to fear and contemptuous of javelins and arrows. The living cavalrymen reeled from the attack, but the dead raised their weapons and fought on.
A trio of panicked cavalrymen raced past Arkhan’s plunging mount. With a snarl, the vizier cut them down with a volley of sorcerous bolts, and then spat Nagash’s dread incantation and returned their corpses to the battle. The horses’ smoking bodies clambered awkwardly upright, and the blackened husks of their riders climbed back into their saddles. The cavalrymen turned their melted faces to the vizier for a moment, and then, as one, they wheeled about and charged into the fray.
With a shout, a desert raider broke free from a pair of Khemri horsemen and bore down on Arkhan, his dark eyes blazing with hate. The vizier brought his horse around and called upon the power of Nagash’s elixir. His blood burned, and the attacking rider seemed to move in slow, languid motion. Arkhan swatted aside the rider’s blade and then slashed open his chest as the warrior lumbered past, once more uttering the arcane incantation that would bind the dead to his bidding. The raider’s blood-soaked corpse had barely struck the ground before it was moving once more, rising clumsily onto its feet and staggering off in search of its former kinsmen.
Across the battlefield, the dead rose from the ground and threw themselves at the living. The men of Bhagar cried out in terror as the bloody corpses clung to their legs, snatched at reins or struck at them with knife and fist. The raiders slashed at the undead with swords and axes, severing arms and caving in skulls, but for every corpse that fell, another waited to take its place, and the men of Bhagar had precious little strength left after their long, wild ride across the desert.
Still the battle raged, with neither side willing to give ground. The forces were intermingled, and there was no telling who had the upper hand. Arkhan looked around for his trumpeter, and found the boy on the ground a short distance away with an arrow through his eye. With a snarl, the vizier realised that he scarcely needed the horn any more. The dead would do his bidding according to his will, and there were more of them joining his side with every passing minute.
Suddenly, Arkhan heard a whistling roar off to his right, and a plume of dust and sand rose like a fist into the sky. Men and horses were caught up in it and flung through the air like toys. The vizier bared his jagged teeth. That had to be the city’s Hierophant of Khsar, and ben Alcazzar would no doubt be somewhere close by. Spurring his horse with a shout, Arkhan headed towards the slowly collapsing pillar of earth with the surviving members of his retinue in close pursuit.
Once again, he called upon the power of the elixir in his blood, and Arkhan waded through a sea of turgid bodies and drifting blades. He cut down everything in his path, be it enemy or friend. Every man he slew rose in his wake and rejoined the battle, their expressions still fixed in the agonising moment of death.
After what seemed like an eternity of slaughter, Arkhan came upon a knot of desert horsemen surrounded by a rising tide of slashing, snapping corpses. The vizier recognised ben Alcazzar at once, with his black leather armour and flowing head scarf. The prince rode a fiery white warhorse whose flanks were near pink with gore, and his scimitar was red and notched nearly to the hilt. He was surrounded by a dozen of his kinsmen, who slashed and stabbed at the encircling horde with grim, silent determination. The warriors had learned that a corpse without a head would not rise again, and they plied their blades like executioners, striking down one slow-moving undead warrior after another. The mindless corpses were already being forced to climb over the mounded heaps of their fellows in order to reach their prey Arkhan noted with surprise that two of the headless bodies near the prince had the alabaster skin of immortals.
Next to ben Alcazzar sat a brown-robed man on a dusty steed, wielding a curled wooden staff instead of a blade. As the vizier watched, the man pointed his staff at a cluster of nearby riders and bellowed an entreaty to Khsar. At once, the sand beneath the riders exploded upwards with a roar like a storm wind, hurling their broken bodies more than thirty feet into the air.
Cursing, Arkhan cast around for something he could throw. He caught sight of the body of a warhorse nearby with a javelin jutting from its side, and rode over to grab it. The barbed shaft did not come free easily, even with the vizier’s more-than-human strength, but finally he held the bloodstained weapon in his hands.
There was another blast of air just a few dozen paces to Arkhan’s right, sweeping up half of the vizier’s retinue and crushing the life out of them. With a savage shout, Arkhan turned in the saddle and hurled the javelin at the hierophant with all of his might.
The priest saw the weapon streak towards him at nearly the last moment and raised his staff in a desperate attempt to block Arkhan’s throw. Had the javelin been cast by a mortal hand, the priest might have succeeded; as it was, the hierophant simply wasn’t fast enough to keep the weapon’s bronze head from punching into his chest and hurling him from his saddle.
Shahid ben Alcazzar saw the priest fall, and followed the path of the javelin back to Arkhan, some ten yards away. The vizier met the prince’s dark eyes, smiled, and then spoke the Incantation of Summoning.
A moment later the prince’s horse reared in fright, and ben Alcazzar staggered as the corpse of the priest tried to pull him from the saddle. The two figures struggled for a moment. Then, with a savage cry, ben Alcazzar drew back his sword and buried it in his older brother’s skull.
As the priest’s body fell limply to the ground, the prince glanced wildly around, and saw only a sea of grasping, bloody hands and slack, lifeless faces. Some of those who reached hungrily for him were once his friends or his cousins. Finally, ben Alcazzar turned back to Arkhan and shouted, “Enough! Stop this tide of horrors, and I will yield!” The prince reached up and tore away his head scarf, revealing the anguish etched deep into his handsome face.
Arkhan raised his hand, and with a single thought his undead warriors retreated a step and grew still. Across the battlefield, the clamour of battle abruptly tapered off. The vizier edged his horse forwards until he was just a few yards from the prince. He smiled.
“What will you give so that your people may survive?” he asked.
“Take whatever you want,” ben Alcazzar said thickly. Tears stained his tanned cheeks. “There is gold enough in Bhagar to make you a king, Arkhan the Black. I’ll pay any price you name.”
Arkhan’s dark eyes glittered.
“Done,” he said, and the fate of Bhagar was sealed.
The kings arrived in Khemri at roughly the same time, early on the evening of the fifth day after Nagash’s return. The twin Priest Kings of Numas, Seheb and Nuneb, travelled south through the fertile river lands north of the Vitae with a mounted retinue of Ushabti, viziers, scribes and slaves. They crossed the great river by ferry, arriving at the empty city docks just as the royal barges of Zandri were poling their way to shore. The viziers of the two royal parties eyed one another with diplomatic reserve, and then hissed sharp orders to their slaves to begin disembarking as quickly as possible.
Within minutes, the square began filling with horses, chariots, palanquins and scores of frantic slaves as each procession sought to gain the advantage of precedence over the other. Zandri’s chief vizier took the tactical step of ordering the king’s wardrobe to be left aboard his b
arge, saving nearly half an hour of unloading. Not to be outdone, the chief vizier for the horse lords noted the surreptitious manoeuvre and sent a message across the river that only the chariots of the twin kings should be brought across, consigning the rest of the retinue to walk the rest of the way to the palace. Gold was pressed into the palms of the ferrymen to redouble their efforts, and bargemen were pulled from their duties and pressed into service unloading the royal household. Slaves lost their footing and fell into the river, and no one could spare a moment to aid them.
In the end, despite heroic efforts and great sacrifice on both sides, the kings reached the docks at very nearly the same time. The viziers had fought to a draw, bowing curtly to one another across the open square.
It was only then that the functionaries noticed the unease of the royal bodyguards, and realised how silent and dark the Living City had become. They looked around the deserted wharves, lit only by Neru’s silver glow, and wondered at all the rumours they had heard about Khemri’s ageless king.
No sooner had the royal personages set foot on the docks than a single, pale figure appeared at the southern edge of the square. Raamket, approached the three kings, his cloak of flayed skin spreading like ghastly wings around his shoulders.
“Nagash the Living God welcomes you,” he said, bowing deeply. “It is my honour to escort you into his presence.”
Before the shocked kings could offer a reply, the vizier beckoned to the twin Kings of Numas, and then turned and set off at a brisk stride towards the palace. The order of precedence had been set, and a hissed command from the vizier set the royal chariots rattling forwards across the paving stones, leaving Amn-nasir and his scowling retainers to follow as best they could.
[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer Page 12