Behind her, the drums thudded. The rivers of corpses flowing in from the jungles had begun to slacken, at last. But there were other legions than just those of the charnel house. Nitocris had summoned the ghoul-tribes to war. Octavia hated the ghouls, as one who raised chickens hated foxes.
They were parasites, but useful in battle. They would crack the bones of their enemies and sup on the marrow, and, even better, they would die in droves and thus find their purpose.
She looked up. The sun had set. It was time to call the others. She had felt the flickers of their consciousness, so fierce even with the weight of millennia of death pressing them down. They yearned even now to fly and hunt. Animals did not understand death. They took no solace in it, for which she pitied them. But they would come when she called, and like faithful hounds, they would follow her commands. ‘I am sorry,’ she murmured, ‘but I need you, my lovelies. You must rise and fly and darken the sky with your wings.’
She reached out with her mind and voice, and stoked the tiny embers of consciousness into roaring flames. Down in the darkness beneath the temple complex, they stirred. Big and small, their size dwindling with the rising strata beneath the ruin, they were all dead and they all responded to her call with an alacrity that might have startled another necromancer. They came not grudgingly, or because of promises of hunting and blood, but due to love. They loved her, even as the spirits and ghosts loved her, for she had spent months whispering to them in their cavernous tombs, stroking their tiny minds with her own, letting them know that they were not alone. They were, as all the true dead were, her friends.
Across the temple complex, in the wells, the slaves began to wail and scream as typhoons of withered flesh and dry, brittle hair spun upwards from the dark, unexplored depths below. Thousands of bats came at Octavia’s plea, and they exploded into the air, blotting out the moon. Great-winged shapes hurtled through the crowd of their smaller cousins, and even larger shapes came behind them. Fell-bats and the great terrorgheists from which they were descended hurtled upwards to stretch long-stilled wings once more. Tattered lungs inflated and stretched as the great bats shrieked their return to the world above.
A terrorgheist crashed down onto the top of the ziggurat, nearly sweeping aside the drummers in its haste. Octavia held up her hand, unafraid, and the massive corpse-beast nuzzled her palm and made whistling whines of greeting. She scratched its chin and murmured pleasantries to it. It was the same basic shape as a bat, but it was larger than a wyvern. Its flesh had the consistency of forest loam, and its bones rose like tombstones from its sagging skin. The echoes of its hunger were almost overpowering.
‘Magnificent,’ Nitocris said.
Octavia did not flinch, or otherwise react. Fear and pain, she thought. The terrorgheist shifted and grumbled, its toothy maw flexing as it eyed the vampire greedily. Unlike many dead things, the giant bats did not become subservient around vampires. To them, the smaller blood-suckers were just as much prey as anything else.
Nitocris, covered in gore as she was, likely looked especially delicious. The thought amused Octavia, and she fought to keep a smile from cracking her facade of indifference.
‘Would it devour me, if you commanded it?’ Nitocris said, as she drew closer to Octavia. Her fingers combed through Octavia’s red hair. It was a habit of the vampire’s that never failed to annoy Octavia. Oh yes, it would gobble you up in an instant. And if I thought that’d kill you, I’d be tempted to let it try, she thought. She needed the vampire, but plans could be adapted. Especially if what her brother believed about Andraste were true.
‘I do not command them. They are not slaves,’ Octavia said, pushing the thought aside. Nitocris stepped away from her. She reached towards the terrorgheist. It twitched away from her with a bone-rattling hiss. Nitocris frowned. ‘I want it,’ she said. ‘Make it bow to me.’
‘I told you, I do not command them,’ Octavia said.
‘But I command you,’ Nitocris said, not looking at her.
‘I wish for it to be my mount in the coming war. I wish to descend upon my enemies from above, and strike with speed.’ Octavia felt Nitocris’s mind and will uncoil, like an adder readying itself to strike. The terrorgheist reared up and extended its wings. It gave a thunderous shriek, and Nitocris gestured sharply. The dark magics that seeped invisibly from her pores swept forwards, wrenching the beast’s mind from Octavia’s grasp with ridiculous ease. Octavia staggered as a dagger of pain cut into her thoughts. Nitocris laughed and sprang onto the terrorgheist, slithering up onto its neck. She plunged her clawed fingers into what remained of its flesh and muscle.
‘You see, it is not so difficult, to make things do as you wish,’ Nitocris cackled as she forced the beast to bend low. It balanced on its wings and gave a wail of frustration and anger. ‘I could even force it to eat you, if I so desired,’ she added. She leaned forwards, the slim, corded muscles in her arms swelling as she dug her claws more tightly into the neck of the terrorgheist. Its jaws sagged, and a foul odour washed over Octavia.
She felt no fear. Only anger; and she allowed it to flash, briefly, in her eyes. Nitocris looked down at her and smiled. ‘Can it be?’ she asked. ‘Can you have finally learned the lesson which I have been trying to impart to you since I plucked you from an ignominious fate?’ Nitocris’s smile became a silvery slash. ‘What you have is mine. I have given it to you and I may take it back, should I wish. Even your dreams are mine, Octavia of Altdorf.’
‘As my queen wishes,’ Octavia said. She met Nitocris’s eyes, but only for a moment. When she looked away, the terrorgheist snapped its wings and lunged upwards into the bat-filled night sky. The force of its passage nearly knocked Octavia from her feet. She looked up, as Nitocris’s scream of joy rang out. The vampire-queen was never happier, save when battle was on the horizon.
Her brother was right. Nitocris’s usefulness was rapidly coming to an end. Like a spoiled child, she would be taught the error of her ways, in the moments before she was condemned to oblivion. She had no purpose, and things without purpose must be discarded.
‘Savour your joy, my queen,’ she said softly. ‘Savour the illusion of control, for your empire totters towards its final resting place.’
Chapter 16
Felix awoke as Gotrek’s rough palm clamped itself around his mouth. ‘Hsst. Quiet, manling,’ the Slayer growled, as Felix thrashed. They had made camp in the branches of one of the larger, thick-rooted trees. The branch Felix had chosen was as wide as a bridge and about as comfortable, but he’d managed to fall into a fitful slumber despite the noise of the night-jungle. Carnosaurs screeched hungrily as they prowled below, hunting the tri-horns and the shell-backed quadrupeds that seemed to infest the region. Leopards, snakes and other, unknown, predators stalked the jungle’s shadows. The tree was no real protection from the former, but it kept them from attracting the notice of anything bigger, and Zabbai and her warriors could see off the occasional, curious big cat.
Now, however, the tree shuddered down to its roots, and Felix could hear the steady thud of marching feet. It was still night, but the stars and the moon were only barely visible through the cloud of darting bats that flowed continuously overhead.
Gotrek allowed him to sit up, and gestured. Felix’s query died unspoken in his mouth as he caught sight of the stumbling, staggering shapes moving through the trees. The zombies moved steadily, crawling if they could not walk. Amongst the horde, he caught sight of bog-blackened bones and rusty weapons and armour, and, even worse, the lumbering shapes of giant reptiles, their scales sloughing from them as they plodded mindlessly forwards. There were more animals besides the great beasts – leopards, serpents and, above them, large bats, whose leather wings caused the trees to shake and shudder.
The big bats ploughed through their smaller cousins like sharks dispersing schools of fish, their wings beating loudly, and their shrieks grating on Felix’s ears.
One of the latter swooped low over the tree they had taken refuge in, its h
airy body a black blot in the night sky. In the branches, Zabbai’s warriors raised their bows. She made a sharp gesture, and they lowered their weapons. The bat was enormous. Felix suddenly remembered the giant bats that had laired in the caverns beneath Wurtbad, and those he had seen from a distance, swooping across the plains of the east, hunting the herds of wild horses that galloped there. The one that circled overhead wasn’t quite that size, but it was big enough to have given the carnosaur they’d encountered earlier a moment’s pause. He glanced nervously at Gotrek, hoping the Slayer wouldn’t attempt to get the creature’s attention. Gotrek looked at him and muttered, ‘It’s a scout, manling. If it lands, we’ll have to kill it, and quickly, because there’s no way we can sneak past it. Damn beasts have a better sense of smell than a wolf.’
Felix nodded tersely. He watched the bat circle overhead, its immense leathery wings snapping and curling as it drew closer and closer to the ground. Whether it was a living beast, bound to serve dead masters, or an undead construct wrenched from some hidden grave, he couldn’t say, nor did he wish to get close enough to find out. ‘Maybe we should get down,’ he hissed, doubtfully.
‘Too late for that, I think,’ Zabbai said. The bat suddenly plummeted like a rock from a catapult, its wings folding back as it dropped towards them. Branches snapped and splintered as the bat descended onto the branch Felix and Gotrek stood on, bracing itself on its folded wings and its rear legs.
It hissed and its snout wrinkled back, exposing a mouthful of thin fangs. It was long dead by the look of it, but, quicker than Felix could react, it began to hop forwards. Gotrek darted past Felix to meet it, but the arrows of Zabbai’s warriors beat him to the kill, piercing the bat’s eyes, brain and mouth, and silencing it instantly. It began to slide off the branch and Gotrek lunged forwards to catch it by one limp wing. He hauled it back up onto the branch and shot a glare at Zabbai. ‘I could have done that,’ he growled.
‘You have done entirely too much of that on this trip, Doom-Seeker,’ Zabbai said. She placed a hand on Felix’s shoulder. ‘Your companion will only have three days come the sunrise. Every needless brawl you engage in reduces that time.’
‘It’s not my fault,’ Gotrek said petulantly. ‘I didn’t stick that thing on him.’
‘But it will be your fault if he dies,’ Zabbai said.
Gotrek glowered and made ready to reply, when one of Zabbai’s warriors knocked gently on the tree trunk. Zabbai turned and immediately sank into a crouch. She motioned for the others to do the same. ‘Corpse-eaters,’ she murmured.
Felix looked down. Ghouls padded through the jungle below, in ones and twos. Some wore primitive armour, but all carried weapons. Their worm-pale flesh was daubed with ash and war paint, and they barked and growled softly to one another as they moved. More ghouls followed the first lot, and still more after that. He counted a hundred of the degenerate cannibals before he gave up. Gotrek poked him. Felix looked at the Slayer, who pointed down towards a tall figure striding through the ghouls, a heavy battle standard held horizontally across his shoulders. He wore armour, had a bow slung across his back and a sword on one hip. As he stepped into a beam of moonlight, Felix caught sight of his face. It was Steyr. He looked at Gotrek, who shrugged, and then at Zabbai, who shook her head.
Felix had assumed that the vampire had died with his brothers, and he wasn’t certain what his apparent survival implied, save that it wasn’t good. Steyr paused beneath the tree. In the moonlight, Felix saw the vampire’s nose wrinkle. He looked around. Felix tensed. His hand sought Karaghul’s hilt. If the vampire looked up, they were finished. Ghouls could climb as well as the apes they resembled, and almost as quickly.
Steyr raised his head. An indefinable expression passed across his face, followed by a thin smile. Felix knew that the vampire had seen them. He felt Gotrek uncoil. The Slayer was ready to fall from his perch onto the vampire. But, instead of the expected command to attack, Steyr merely twitched his head, as if in a nod, and then kicked a ghoul in the rear to propel it along. The vampire strode on, and vanished into the shadows of the jungle, the ghouls swarming in his wake. When the last ghoul had vanished, Zabbai rose. ‘We must go,’ she said. They descended quickly, and moved into the jungle, in the opposite direction from the army. Felix hurried to catch up with her.
‘That army,’ he said. ‘It is moving north, towards Lybaras, isn’t it?’
‘Our enemies move swiftly,’ Zabbai said.
‘More swiftly than Khalida anticipated?’ Felix asked.
Zabbai said nothing. Felix shook his head. He met Gotrek’s eye. ‘I don’t think you’re the only one running out of time, manling,’ the Slayer said. Felix lifted his wrist and stared at the deadly bracelet in the moonlight. He fell silent, and stayed that way until the moon had set and the night sky had begun to lighten.
He tried to distract himself from thoughts of asps and poison with more immediate worries about what they might find when they reached the Temple of Skulls. If he’d still been an optimist, he might have hoped that they’d find the ruin abandoned and the sword just sitting somewhere, unguarded. Instead, he feared they’d find the ruin abandoned and the sword gone. Instead of being able to sneak in and sneak out, they’d have to pursue an army of the dead.
As the sun began to rise, Felix found himself marching beside Antar. It wasn’t the spot he’d have chosen, but Gotrek had lapsed into surliness and Zabbai was ranging ahead with her warriors, checking that the trail they followed was clear of dangers.
‘War is a thing of beauty,’ Antar said as he chopped through a vine. ‘It is the crucible in which kings are forged. Antar, Son of Dhekesh, is of a superior forging, if you were wondering, fleshy one.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Felix said, as the vine that Antar had chopped in two swung wildly towards him. He ducked and glared at the tomb-prince. He hadn’t initiated the conversation, and had done his best to discourage it. Antar didn’t seem to notice.
‘Of course you were,’ Antar said. ‘Antar is magnificent and mysterious – all men wish to know him and all women wish to bed him.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes it is the reverse. Antar does not allow such occasions to discommode him, for he is comfortable with adulation in all of its forms.’
‘I’m very happy for you,’ Felix muttered.
‘As you should be,’ Antar cried portentously. ‘Antar, Hawk of the Crimson Winds, inspires joy in his servants and enemies alike!’ He sliced at more vines with enthusiasm. ‘And once this minor task is done, Antar shall enter the crucible of war once again. He shall stride across the ruins of Lybaras like a colossus, and carrion birds shall follow in his wake!’
‘Do you have some particular grievance against Lybaras? Is that why you’re so eager for war?’ Felix said. He wasn’t actually curious. He was simply trying to keep Antar from bellowing. For a creature entirely lacking in lungs, the tomb-prince could muster an impressive amount of volume. He’d stunned one of the colourful birds that seemed to infest the upper reaches of the trees just by yelling in its general direction. And while they’d encountered no dangers or obstacles on their trek – the passing army had apparently frightened most of the larger jungle beasts into seeking more accommodating climes, for which Felix was grateful – there was no sense in tempting fate.
‘Grievance, no,’ Antar said. ‘Antar bears no grudges! He is as magnanimous in defeat as victory, elsewise he would have slain thee and thy stunted monkey for shaming him!’
‘Then why agitate for war with them?’ Felix asked, recalling what Zabbai had told him about Antar and his fellow princes. The tomb-prince reminded him of any number of arrogant aristocrats he and Gotrek had run across in their travels – so convinced of his own rectitude that he couldn’t see the very real harm his actions might cause.
‘Agitate? Agitate! Who claims that Antar agitates? Name him and Antar shall challenge him to the Test of Seven Scorpions!’ Antar stopped and whirled, so quickly that Felix almost ran into him. ‘Antar is no agitator, he is a hero!’
‘Ah,’ Antar said. ‘Yes, well, say, rather, that Antar urges his kingly forebears to consider the merits of war.’ He looked at Felix. ‘War is the only entertainment available in the Great Land. Antar cannot taste grapes or wine, he cannot touch a woman and his paints are all dust. The ink has dried, and Antar’s poetry goes unwritten.’
‘You were a poet?’
‘Antar was the greatest poet! His verses made Asaph herself weep for the beauty of them,’ he said. ‘Alas, truth and beauty fled with flesh, and now Antar is but a shadow of his former glory – though he is still more glorious than any who would compare themselves to him.’
‘Not that anyone would do so willingly,’ Zabbai said as she drew near. ‘We’re almost there.’ Her warriors followed her, their skulls creaking as they surveyed their surroundings watchfully.
‘How can you tell?’ Felix said.
‘Offhand, manling, I’d say because we’ve been walking through it for some time now,’ Gotrek growled. It was the first thing the dwarf had said since the sky had begun to lighten. Gotrek swept his axe out, chopping through a curtain of vines and rotting leaves to reveal the ancient stonework hidden beneath.
Felix looked around in surprise. Now that he’d been made aware of it, he could see that what he’d taken for trees or stones were in fact the remains of walls and wide shapes that might be statues beneath their coverings of vegetation. ‘What is this place? Is it another outpost?’
‘No,’ Gotrek said. He ripped aside a handful of vines and revealed the surface of a strangely carved square column. Felix realised that there were other columns, all equally massive and connected by flat, vine-encrusted archways. They were in some sort of overgrown plaza. Gotrek glared at the markings on the column and then spat.
Gotrek and Felix: The Serpent Queen Page 22