Nagash considered this. More vassals were needed to labour in the mines and seek out sources of stone and timber for constructing the fortress. Empires grew on a steady diet of conquest.
The Undying King crossed the sanctum and settled once more upon his throne. His eyes guttered thoughtfully.
“Tell me more,” he said.
THIRTEEN
Blood for Blood
Lahmia, the City of the Dawn, in the 76th year of Khsar the Faceless
(-1598 Imperial Reckoning)
“The queen! The queen!” Aiyah wailed in horror. “Blessed gods, what have we done?”
Arkhan reeled backwards, away from the bed and Neferata’s withered corpse. The sight of her left him speechless. He shook his head, stunned at the enormity of what had happened.
“I don’t understand,” he finally managed to say. “There were no mistakes. The ritual should have worked. It should have worked!”
The immortal rubbed his face with a bloodstained hand. Belatedly, he realised that his arm was still bleeding. With an effort, he focussed his will and sealed the wound shut. He felt weak and stiff. His limbs were cold. He’d given her almost every ounce of vigour he possessed. All for nothing, he thought bitterly. She looks no better than Neferem now.
Arkhan forced himself to close his eyes. He took a deep breath and forced the image of the dead queen from his mind. Almost at once, his sense of regret dissipated, like the heat of the desert at sunset, leaving his mind sharper and clearer than it had been in years. Neferata was gone, and the glamour she’d cast on him had faded along with her. Arkhan was both surprised and ashamed at how keenly he felt the loss. Bitterness and hatred welled up to fill the void it had left behind.
He was himself again. And the way ahead was clear.
The immortal rose slowly to his feet and went to collect his robes. Aiyah was curled into a ball at the foot of the queen’s bed, sobbing despondently.
“That’s enough,” he said as he dressed. “She’s gone. All the wailing in the world won’t bring her back.”
By the time he had tied on his sword belt, the handmaiden had mastered herself. She sat up, rubbing at the tracks of kohl that stained her damp cheeks. “What would you have me do?” she asked.
Arkhan grabbed a carry-bag from the floor beside Neferata’s writing desk and began stuffing Nagash’s books inside. “That’s your concern now,” he said. “If I were you, I’d gather up some changes of clothing and as many of the queen’s trinkets as I could carry, and then steal a fast horse from the royal stable. Any number of merchant caravans would be happy to let you ride along with them, for the proper fee. I wouldn’t advise riding the trade road alone.”
The handmaiden stared bemusedly at him. “Leave the city?” she said dully. “Where would I go?”
“Anywhere but here, you little fool,” he snarled, slinging the bulging bag over his shoulder. “Unless you’re keen to drink from a poisoned cup and follow your queen into darkness.”
Aiyah watched him as he headed for the chamber door, her expression full of dread. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“To see the king,” Arkhan growled. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to give him for a very long time.”
The halls of the palace were quiet in the small hours before dawn. Arkhan slipped from one shadow to the next, his pale face hidden by a desert scarf and his hands concealed by dark leather gloves. He disliked the notion of creeping through the palace like a rat, but he suspected that if Lamashizzar knew he was coming, the feckless king would go into hiding, and the immortal did not have time to waste hunting for him across the sprawling royal compound. He meant to settle accounts with the king and be well away from the city before daybreak. There were secluded spots on the Golden Plain where he could lie up until nightfall and contemplate his next move.
Arkhan didn’t plan on going far. He’d already come to that conclusion. With the queen dead and the king soon to follow, there would be chaos and confusion among the noble houses as the most prominent lords vied to rule the city as crown regent until Lamashizzar’s young son reached adulthood. The process could last for weeks, even months—more than enough time for him to knit the plains outlaws together into something resembling an army. With a little luck, the city nobles would still be scheming against one another on the night his cutthroats came scrambling over the city walls.
The streets of Lahmia would run with rivers of blood. Her villas would go up in flame, as would the ships filling her harbour. The sack of the city would take days, and when he was done, not one stone would be left standing atop another. Then Arkhan would lead his howling mob eastward, and woe betide anyone or anything caught in their path. The petty cares of mortal men filled him with contempt; he wanted nothing more than to scourge mankind for its callowness and stupidity, to bury all of Nehekhara under a pall of suffering and despair. By the time he was done, the survivors would look back on the reign of Nagash with envy.
The immortal moved as swiftly as he dared, encountering few servants and even fewer palace guards as the crossed the royal compound towards the king’s quarters. The royal apartments were a collection of luxurious chambers for the ruler, his children and his favoured concubines, connected by a sprawling network of common rooms, libraries, small shrines and meditative gardens. It occupied the entire north-west corner of the palace compound, with views looking out across the city proper and the wide, blue sea. What little he knew of it came from Neferata, and she’d only lived there during her early childhood. He had no idea where the king’s bedchamber lay, but he’d spent enough time in the royal palace at Khemri to know how such places operated. When in doubt, follow the servants, he thought.
Once past the great central palace garden and the royal audience chamber, Arkhan passed through the palace’s smaller privy chambers, where the king met with his councillors to conduct the day-to-day business of the city. From there he came upon a series of increasingly well-appointed passageways. He began to encounter more and more sleepy-eyed servants, hurrying about on one errand or another in anticipation of the coming day. Before long, Arkhan came to a tall, wide doorway, flanked by basalt statues of Asaph and Ptra. Hieroglyphs carved into the stone lintel proclaimed, Here dwell the most favoured of the gods, the mortal seed of Asaph the Beautiful and great Ptra in His Glory. With a wolfish smile, the immortal drew his iron sword and crept across the threshold.
Beyond the great doorway was a small, silent antechamber, with passageways leading off in three directions. Arkhan continued through the doorway on the opposite side of the room, and soon found himself in a small, shadow-filled garden. Narrow paths wound among the ornamental trees and clusters of ferns. Somewhere a fountain chuckled to itself, and captive songbirds chirped sleepily in the branches. Was this the central garden for the royal apartments, or just one of several? Arkhan’s confidence began to ebb. He couldn’t afford the time to search every path and passageway until he found the king. The first hints of false dawn were already paling the sky overhead.
Suddenly, he caught the sound of soft voices approaching him from behind. Arkhan slipped off the path as quietly as he could and hid behind the bole of a palm tree. Moments later, a pair of bare-chested slaves walked past, murmuring to each other in quiet tones. One carried a polished bronze bowl filled with steaming water, while another bore clean cotton cloths and a small, bronze shaving knife.
The immortal was surprised. He had no idea that Lamashizzar had become such an early riser. Arkhan waited until the men had disappeared from sight before easing himself back onto the path and following along in their wake.
It took several minutes to reach the far side of the garden. The paths wound a meandering course through the lush foliage, creating the illusion that the garden was much larger and more secluded than it actually was, and effectively concealed the routes into and out of the open-air space. It had been so cunningly designed that Arkhan hadn’t realised he’d reached the opposite edge until he rounded another sharp turn in
the path and came upon another tall, imposing doorway, flanked by a pair of royal guards.
Arkhan froze, his sword held low at his side. The two men were clad in lacquered iron armour and polished skullcaps, and were armed with heavy, straight swords like the one he carried. Neither man saw him at first; his dark clothing blended well with the shadows, and it was clear that their senses were dulled from a long, quiet watch.
They were less than fifteen paces away. Arkhan gauged the distance carefully, and drew upon what little remained of the queen’s elixir. Strength swelled in his limbs, and he dashed forward, almost too quickly for the eye to follow. His blade whickered through the air. The first man barely had time to register the movement before his head toppled from his shoulders. Blood sprayed across the second man; Arkhan saw his eyes widen in shock, stunned by the speed and ferocity of the attack. The hesitation was fatal.
Arkhan paused just long enough to drag the two bodies beneath a nearby stand of drooping ferns, then crept carefully through the doorway into the king’s personal apartments. Beyond was another dark antechamber, thick with a fog of cloying incense. He glimpsed low divans and wooden tables arranged together in tight clusters around the room. Empty wine jars and bronze trays littered with scraps of food covered most of the tables.
On the opposite side of the antechamber was another open doorway, filled with the shifting orange glow of lit braziers. Arkhan paused at the threshold and glimpsed what appeared to be another long rectangular chamber. There was a set of tall blue-painted doors on the far side of the room, and the doorway was carved with intricate hieroglyphs of protection, wealth and good fortune. The king’s bedchamber had to lie on the other side of those doors, he reckoned. Arkhan steeled himself, acutely aware of how little vigour remained to him. He would have to make this quick. The thought galled him, but better swift vengeance than none at all. Tightening his grip on his bloodstained sword, he raced for the doors.
The guards rushed him the moment he stepped across the threshold.
There were six of them, waiting with swords drawn, three to either side of the doorway. Doubtless one of them had heard something as he’d despatched the guards at the edge of the garden, and they’d lain in wait for him. Now they leapt at him with triumphant shouts, moving quickly to cut him off from the king’s bedchamber.
Arkhan had little time to curse his own carelessness, and no choice but to draw upon the elixir once more. The guardsmen were swift and skilled, but lacked experience; in their haste they got in one another’s way, fouling the sweep of their own swords. The immortal gave them a bestial snarl and struck first, ducking low and spinning on his heel to strike at the man just behind and to his right. The heavy iron blade slashed across the guard’s thigh, through the narrow gap between the edge of his armoured skirt and the top of his iron greaves. The sword sliced through flesh and muscle and left him thrashing on the floor in a spreading pool of blood.
The guardsman to Arkhan’s immediate left chopped downwards with his sword. He parried the blow swiftly and drove the man back with a feint to his throat. The warriors shouted curses at him and at one another. A blade scored across his back, and another jabbed into his side, just above his hip. Arkhan scarcely felt the blows. He whirled left and slashed upwards, catching another guardsman’s sword wrist and severing his hand. The man reeled backwards with a scream and slipped in the dark blood pouring from the other guard’s leg.
Two down, but now the other guards had more room to manoeuvre. Arkhan sidestepped a fearsome downward slash, and then had to whirl out of the way of a thrust angling in from his far left. Then a powerful blow on his back cut deep into his shoulder blade and nearly sent him sprawling. This time he felt the sharp pain of broken bone, but he sealed the wound with a thought and kept fighting, lunging upwards and catching a guard in the throat with the point of his sword.
The remaining guards circled around him, harrying him with a flurry of strikes that were meant to test his defences and keep him off-balance. He kept moving, turning in place and batting the attacks aside, waiting for his moment. A warrior lunged at him from the right, thrusting at his sword arm. He turned on his heel, sweeping the point aside with his own blade and causing the man to stumble slightly forwards. The guard saw his peril and moved swiftly to regain his balance, but it was already too late. Arkhan’s blade flashed, and the guard’s head bounced across the floor.
The two surviving guards struck at once, hitting him from behind. One sword bit deeply into his right hip, its edge grating against bone, while the other stabbed into his back, just below his left shoulder blade. Arkhan staggered, tasting blood in his mouth. He turned, almost tearing the sword from the grip of the man who’d stabbed him, and slashed his blade across the man’s face. The guard fell with a scream, clutching at his ruined eyes. His sword was still trapped in Arkhan’s back, lodged between his ribs.
With a savage jerk, the last guard tore his blade free from Arkhan’s hip. Seeing his foe gravely wounded, the guard rained a storm of ringing blows down upon the immortal’s guard. Sparks flew as the iron blades clashed, and the immortal’s counter-blows began to slacken. The guard cut him three times in swift succession, once above the right elbow, once in the left thigh, and once across the chest. Sensing triumph, the warrior redoubled his attacks, aiming a lightning-fast blow at Arkhan’s neck that the immortal barely turned aside. The block left his torso unprotected, and the guard leapt forward with a shout, thrusting his sword straight at Arkhan’s heart.
But the blow never struck home. Arkhan had given him the opening to draw him in, then spun on his heel and let the guard’s sword go past him. His own blade smashed into the side of the man’s head, shattering his iron skullcap and driving shards of bone into his brain. The warrior was dead before his body hit the floor.
Arkhan staggered, nearly toppling as well. The battle had lasted only a few seconds, but no doubt it had woken everyone in earshot. The alarm would be spreading through the palace even now. He groped at his back, fumbling for the sword that jutted from his ribs. It took several more agonising seconds to pull it free, and then a moment more to focus his will and use just enough power to seal the wound. He had very little remaining now. If he used much more he might not have enough strength left to escape.
It would be enough, he thought, gritting his ruined teeth. It would have to be enough.
Arkhan lurched forward, gathering speed, and shoved open the doors to the king’s bedchamber.
The room was large, much more so than the queen’s, and dominated by a wide bed piled with silken pillows. Two braziers along the walls to the left and right had been recently stoked to life, revealing rich, painted carvings etched into the sandstone that depicted the great journey of the Nehekharan people from the southern jungles millennia ago. Tall, basalt statues of Ptra and Asaph stood watch over the royal bed, their stone faces uncharacteristically smiling and beneficent. More padded divans and low tables were clustered around the edges of the room, along with a little-used writing table near the tall windows on the room’s opposite side. Gauzy window hangings shifted lazily in the breeze blowing in from the sea.
The two body servants cowered at the foot of the bed, their eyes wide with terror. The upended bowl and the bronze knife gleamed at their feet. Arkhan ignored them, searching the room for the king. Just then, the wind shifted, drawing back the window hangings, and he caught sight of a silhouette between two of the windows. The figure moved suddenly, raising his right arm.
Arkhan was faster. His left hand shot up, fingers outstretched, and he spoke a single word. The last vestiges of his power flowed through his fingertips, and the silhouette stiffened.
A slow, cruel smile crossed the immortal’s face. “Did you imagine I’d forgotten?” he told the king. “Oh, no. That little trick won’t work a second time.”
He forced his stiff limbs to move, making his way haltingly across the chamber. When he passed the great bed, the two servants bolted from the room. He could hear their hysterical sh
outs receding in the direction of the garden. As he drew nearer to the windows he could see the king clearly now. Lamashizzar was clad in a silken sleeping robe, stained here and there with splashes of wine. The strain of the last week had taken a toll upon him: his face was gaunt and sallow, and his eyes were sunken deeply in their sockets. Arkhan saw that the king’s lips were stained from the steady use of lotus root. How long had Lamashizzar kept himself here, surrounded by guards, waiting for word that Neferata had died?
The short dragon-stave was gripped in the king’s outstretched hand. A faint wisp of smoke rose from the wick held in his left hand. The little red coal had burned very close to his fingers, but the king could not let it go. He stared at Arkhan, his expression transfixed, as a bird watches the dreadful approach of the cobra.
Arkhan stared deep into the king’s eyes, savouring the terror he saw there. “As you can see, I’ve learned a few tricks of my own,” he said. “It took some time to perfect the technique, but I knew I’d need it when this day finally came. Thanks to you, I had plenty of time to practice.”
Never taking his eyes from the king, Arkhan set his sword carefully upon the floor. He straightened, his ghastly smile widening. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to share with you for a very long time,” he said. “You know, it was very clever of you, shooting me in the heart with that damned stave of yours. When the bullet pierced, I honestly thought you’d killed me. Everything went black, but then I realised that I could still hear and feel everything around me. How I screamed then. How I raged. After a while, I even begged. I called upon gods I’d forsaken centuries ago, praying for the mercy of death. Naturally, it never came. It was the worst torture I’d ever felt, and if you knew anything about my past, you’d know just exactly how profound that statement is.”
[Nagash 02] - Nagash the Unbroken Page 20