The carnage had grown so severe that the besiegers had to start using slaves to clear lanes through the debris to permit the movement of troops. Cart-loads of bones were dumped in huge liche-fields to the rear of the army, where the king’s acolytes would pore through the wreckage for suitable parts to reassemble useful warriors or larger siege constructs. Further west, scavenging parties combed the necropoli of Khemri, Numas and Zandri, breaking into peasant crypts and raising new conscripts to restore Nagash’s battered army.
The cost of maintaining the siege had grown so severe that the stored energies of the Black Pyramid had been dangerously depleted. Raamket had been sent back to Khemri after the first year of the siege to gather fresh souls for sacrifice. Rumour had it that barges of northern slaves were shipped downriver from Zandri every month to die in the depths of the pyramid.
The Undying King had made it clear to his vassals: if it took ten years, or ten thousand years, the siege of Mahrak would continue until the City of the Gods was no more.
Arkhan peered into the deepening gloom beyond the shadow line and gauged the progress of the scavenging party.
“Two hundred yards,” he said, and the scribe’s brush whispered across the papyrus. “Nothing yet.”
The party was well ahead of the other scavengers, wading through drifts of splintered bone that rose almost to their knees. The sky above the slaves remained clear, as expected. For the last year the besiegers had begun probing the city’s wards in various ways, gathering information on how they operated in the hope of finding a way to unravel them. They had learned that groups of a hundred men or less could cross the shadow line without triggering the rain of fire and could move safely up to a quarter of a mile from the city. Once past that, however, they fell prey to the sphinxes.
There was some debate as to how many of those desert spirits protected Mahrak. Various observers claimed no more than half a dozen, while others insisted there was at least a score. The trouble was that the spirits came and went at will within the quarter-mile zone just outside the city walls. They could disappear into the sandy soil and emerge from a dust cloud hundreds of yards away, striking with terrible speed, before vanishing once again. Despite their best efforts, Nagash’s troops had yet to injure a single sphinx, much less slay one.
The siege wasn’t entirely one-sided, however. If Nagash’s warriors couldn’t enter Mahrak, they could at least make certain that nothing got out. Numasi patrols had intercepted numerous foraging parties over the last two years, and after sufficient torture, the prisoners had confessed to the desperate conditions inside the city. Mahrak’s food stores had been exhausted long ago. The horses were gone, as were all the rats. Fighting had broken out around the temple of Basth when mobs of starving citizens went after the temple’s sacred cats. Mahrak’s fearsome Ushabti, the most terrible holy warriors in all of Nehekhara, found themselves turning their powers upon the city’s faithful in a desperate effort to maintain order.
Initially, Nagash had been pleased by the news. It seemed as though the city might fall at any time, but the king’s anticipation soon turned sour. Mahrak continued to endure, night after awful night, while to the south the Kings of Rasetra and Lybaras were no doubt rebuilding their broken armies to offer battle once more.
The sound of hooves on the far side of the dune caught Arkhan’s attention. He stole a glance over his shoulder and saw a messenger wearing a hooded desert cape slide clumsily from the saddle of a sickly looking mare. Frowning, Arkhan turned his attention back to the slaves creeping towards the distant city. Whatever the rider had to say, he’d hear it soon enough. It was unlikely to be of much significance.
The messenger took his time climbing the rounded dune, his breath rattling noisily in his throat. Arkhan heard the man’s laboured footfalls draw near, until he could smell the oily stink of sickness seeping from the wretch’s pores. The vizier’s pale lips curled in distaste. When the man spoke, his voice was a wheezing rattle.
“First we offer bones. Now we sacrifice flesh and blood to the lions of the desert,” he said. Arkhan felt a cold flash of irritation. Once upon a time he would have made the man suffer dearly for such impertinence.
“Have you a message for me?” he growled. “Or have you chosen to risk your life by wasting my valuable time?” The messenger surprised him with a phlegmatic chuckle.
“The sands of time are running swiftly through our fingers, Arkhan the Black,” he said quietly. Irritation gave way to outrage. Arkhan rounded upon the messenger, his pale hands clenching into fists, and found himself staring into the sallow, haunted face of Amn-nasir, the Priest King of Zandri.
The immortal fought to keep the shock from his face. He stole a wary look at the nearby scribe, who was watching the exchange with dreadful fascination.
“Leave us,” Arkhan told the man. “I’ll relay my observations personally to the king.”
The scribe started to object, but thought better of it when he saw the look of menace in Arkhan’s eyes. Without a word, he snatched up his materials and hastily withdrew down the far side of the dune. When the scribe was out of earshot, Arkhan turned back to the king.
“What is the meaning of this?” he hissed.
Amn-nasir’s sunken eyes widened fractionally at the vizier’s tone, although perhaps it was simply Arkhan’s words making their way through the fog of wine and lotus root gripping the king’s mind. Amn-nasir managed a fleeting smile, revealing a mouth full of stained, rotting teeth.
“I wished to see for myself how far the king’s proud vizier has fallen,” he said softly. Some of Arkhan’s former anger returned. He spread his arms wide.
“Then look,” he sneered. “Drink deep, great one.”
The priest king’s smile returned. A bright thread of drool slipped from the corner of his mouth, and he wiped at it absently with a trembling hand.
“Not even the mightiest among us are safe from Nagash’s wrath,” he observed.
Arkhan bit back a sharp reply. What point was there in denying it? Amn-nasir had watched him writhe like a worm in the palace at Quatar. He thought back to Shepsu-hur’s last words, before he’d ridden to his doom beneath the walls of Mahrak.
The men of Numas and Zandri may well be next.
A distant rumble sounded from the direction of Mahrak, followed by the faint sound of screams. With a curse, Arkhan turned back to the plain and saw that the carnage had already begun.
Three sphinxes reared above the panicked slaves, lashing out at the screaming men with huge, blood-slicked paws. Bodies spun through the air like straw dolls, split wide by the monsters’ talons. It looked as though half the slaves were already dead, and the rest were fleeing in panic back towards the shadow line.
“Come on,” Arkhan murmured angrily. He studied the plain of bones around the fleeing slaves carefully. “Rise up, damn you!”
One of the sphinxes seemed to leap lazily forwards among a knot of terrified slaves, crushing several beneath the weight of its paws and catching another in its fangs. The monster bit the slave in two, spat out the pieces, and then started to lunge for another victim, when suddenly the ground heaved around the struggling slaves and the sphinx jumped skywards like a startled cat.
Massive, low-slung figures erupted from the earth on either side of the sphinx. Jagged pincers the size of a grown man snapped at the monster’s legs, and segmented tails made of gleaming bone stabbed at the creature’s flanks with stingers as long as swords. Three bone constructs, wrought in the shape of huge tomb scorpions, surrounded the desert spirit and stabbed its flanks again and again, eliciting terrible, human-like roars of rage and pain.
The wounded sphinx retreated, dragging a paralysed hind leg and snapping defiantly at the scuttling constructs. The scorpions pressed forwards relentlessly, spreading out to attack the creature from three different directions at once. A sudden gust of wind across the plain kicked up a cloud of sand around the struggling figures and the sphinx’s pack mates attacked. The leonine monsters coalesced
out of the swirling sands and leapt onto the scorpions, snapping at the constructs’ tails with their powerful jaws. Bone splintered and fragments were hurled into the air as the spirits savaged the constructs.
Within seconds, the ill-fated ambush was over. The six monsters paced around the shattered constructs for a few moments more, and then they turned their backs on the fleeing slaves and withdrew into the churning clouds of sand. Their dusky hides merged with the swirling dust, and then disappeared from view.
Arkhan studied the broken bodies of the scorpions and shook his head irritably. Six months of incantations and labour, all gone in moments. The vizier grimaced.
“Well, we managed to hurt one of the beasts this time,” he muttered bitterly. “That’s progress, I suppose.” Amn-nasir grunted scornfully, which in turn triggered a fit of painful coughing.
“Nagash has made a grave miscalculation,” the king finally said. “He has kept us here for years, while our cities slide into ruin and our enemies grow in strength. If we had marched on Rasetra and Lybaras at once, we would have ended this war in a month. But now—”
“What?” Arkhan interrupted, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. The king hesitated.
“Every man has a limit to what he can endure,” he said, his voice almost too faint for the immortal to hear. The vizier studied the king’s tormented face.
“We either endure, or we perish,” he replied.
“All men perish,” Amn-nasir said. “Sometimes a good death is preferable to a wretched life.” Arkhan shook his head.
“You had your chance to rise up against Nagash many years ago, but you bowed your knee to him instead. Now it’s too late,” he said.
“Perhaps,” the king said enigmatically, “and perhaps not.”
“Stop playing children’s games,” Arkhan snapped. “Speak plainly, or not at all.”
“As you wish,” Amn-nasir said. “The Priest King of Lahmia is on his way here, with an army at his back.” The vizier’s eyes widened.
“Are you certain?” he asked, knowing how foolish he sounded even as the question passed his lips. Amn-nasir grinned again, enjoying Arkhan’s surprise.
“My scouts spotted them yesterday. They will be here on the morrow,” he replied.
The failed ambush was forgotten. Arkhan’s mind raced as he tried to grasp the implications of the Lahmians’ impending arrival.
“An army,” he murmured. “Why? Is Lamashizzar coming to side with Nagash, or with the people of Mahrak?” Amn-nasir shrugged.
“The Lahmians are famous opportunists. No doubt Lamashizzar senses that the balance of power is shifting, and seeks to exploit it for his own ends.”
Arkhan considered this, before asking, “How large is the Lahmian army?”
“Perhaps fifty or sixty thousand troops,” the king replied, “a mix of infantry and heavy cavalry, all clad in strange, outlandish armour.”
The vizier shook his head. Nagash had more than twice that number camped outside Mahrak.
“If Lamashizzar pits himself against the Undying King he will be destroyed,” he said.
“If he fights alone, yes,” Amn-nasir said, nodding slowly.
The immortal and the king stared at one another for a long, fraught moment.
“Are the men of Numas contemplating revolt as well?” Arkhan asked quietly.
“I do not speak for Numas,” Amn-nasir replied, his expression inscrutable. Arkhan stepped close to the king.
“You’re a fool to tell me this,” he hissed. “Nagash would reward me well for such information.” Amn-nasir was unmoved by the threat.
“Now who is playing children’s games?” he said. “Do you imagine that your master is capable of gratitude after all this time? Even if you whispered all I’ve said into Nagash’s ear and he somehow trusted you enough to act upon it, do you truly think it would change anything?”
“Why talk to me at all?” the vizier snarled. “You’re right. I have no influence or power any more. The king sets me to menial tasks when it pleases him, and provides me only enough sustenance to eke out a weak, miserable existence.” He thought to say more, but shame held his tongue. For years he had been given little more than drops of the master’s precious elixir, leaving him in constant torment. In desperation, he had taken to supplementing his meagre sustenance with the blood of animals. The bitter blood of horses, jackals, even vultures, partially lessened his terrible thirst, but did nothing to restore his vitality.
More than once over the last few years, Arkhan had contemplated disappearing into the desert and making his way back to Khemri. He knew where Nagash’s arcane tomes were hidden, deep within the Black Pyramid, and somewhere in their pages were the formulas for creating the dreadful elixir. Those formulas would free him from Nagash’s clutches forever, but the long, burning leagues between Mahrak and the Living City daunted him in his weakened state.
“You know more about Nagash and his powers than anyone,” Amn-nasir said, “and you have every reason to desire his downfall. This is your chance, possibly your only chance, to be free of him. If you went to Lamashizzar and offered to share Nagash’s secrets, it might be enough to sway him.” Arkhan frowned.
“Sway him?” The vizier felt his anger returning. “All this bold talk of revolt is a fantasy, isn’t it? You haven’t spoken to Lamashizzar at all. For all you know, the Lahmians think Mahrak is on the verge of collapse and they’re coming here to curry Nagash’s favour. You want to use me as your stalking horse, stirring up the notion of rebellion and gauging Lamashizzar’s reaction before you risk your own skin.”
For the first time, Amn-nasir’s bleary eyes widened in anger.
“Think what you like, vizier,” he said coldly. “I never claimed to know Lamashizzar’s mind. But that doesn’t change any part of what I’ve said to you.” The king reached up with his palsied hands and pulled up his desert hood.
“You and I know better than anyone what Nehekhara will become if Nagash triumphs,” Amn-nasir said. “Mahrak cannot endure much longer, and no doubt Lamashizzar senses this. When that happens, darkness will spread across the east, and the Undying King will become the lord of a dead land. We stand upon the brink, Arkhan. This is our last chance to draw back from the brink of ruin.”
Arkhan did not reply at first. He stared out onto the bone-covered plain, and thought of Bel Aliad, and Bhagar, and even of Khemri.
“Lord of a dead land,” he murmured. He took a deep breath. “I must think on this, great one. You say that Lamashizzar will arrive tomorrow?” The vizier glanced back at the king, but Amn-nasir was gone, already climbing back onto the saddle of his sickly mare. Arkhan watched the king go, and contemplated the future.
A dozen leagues south-east of Mahrak ran a broken range of flat-topped hills, separated by narrow, steep-walled canyons and treacherous gullies. For centuries the terrain had been a haven for eastern bandits, until Nagash’s father Khetep had ruthlessly cleansed it on his southern campaigns, more than two hundred years ago. Many of the steep hills were honeycombed with caves, some containing hidden wells and supply caches built by bandit gangs. A clever general could hide an army in that rugged landscape, which is exactly what Rakh-amn-hotep had done.
It had taken more than three months to move the companies of warriors into position. They moved by night to conceal the dust of their march and burned no fires save for a handful of meagre ovens set deep in the back of the hill caves. First the cavalry arrived, establishing a picket to keep Numasi scouts at bay and standing guard over the caches of supplies transferred by swift-moving wagon teams sent ahead of the infantry companies. By the time the Rasetran king arrived at the sprawling encampment, more than forty thousand warriors had been assembled, awaiting the call to battle. In the weeks that followed, another twenty thousand troops had arrived, bringing the army to nearly its full size.
The host was but a pale shadow of the proud force that had marched upon Khemri four and a half years ago. There were no lizardmen from the deep jungle and their mas
sive beasts of war, nor were there squadrons of swift chariots drawn by hissing, saw-toothed reptiles. Every horse in Rasetra had been pressed into service, and every old veteran and callow youth had been armed and cased in heavy scales and fed into the crucible of war. This was the seed corn of his people. If this last campaign failed it would mean the end of his city. No one would be left to work the mills, or the smithies, or keep the market square going. Within a generation the jungle would claim Rasetra once more.
Rakh-amn-hotep reckoned that the same could be said of Lybaras. The warriors of the scholar-city had been arriving for the last month, and there was no mistaking the old men and clumsy young scribes filling the ranks of their spear companies. He imagined the huge libraries and schools of engineering and philosophy echoing and empty. The great war machines and wondrous sky-boats of Lybaras were no more, and would perhaps never be seen again.
A gentle wind was blowing off the mountains to the west and Neru was high and bright in the sky as the Rasetran king stood atop a low ridge and watched for the army’s last expected arrivals. His Ushabti stood close by, wrapped in desert robes and hoods to conceal their divine gifts. A pair of scribes crouched at the base of a large boulder, comparing supply lists and making notations on wax tablets with dull copper styluses. Ekhreb stood to one side of the scribes, studying their notations carefully, and then went to the king’s side. He nodded his head to Rakh-amn-hotep and the tall, slender figure standing at the king’s right.
“All is in readiness,” the champion said quietly. “The companies have drawn their supplies for the march, and will be ready to move at first light.” Rakh-amn-hotep nodded gravely.
[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer Page 42