He took the weapon carefully from the king’s hand. “It was worth it, teaching you the secrets of the Undying King’s elixir. Without it, my vengeance would not have been possible. Now, when the bullet strikes your heart, you’ll know the same smothering darkness, the same helplessness. The same despair.”
The immortal pressed the gaping muzzle of the dragon to Lamashizzar’s chest. A faint tremor shook the king’s body. His eyes widened a tiny, terrified fraction. It would have taken a prodigious, desperate exertion of will to manage even so small a movement.
Arkhan plucked the wick from the king’s left hand, and blew softly upon the end. The tiny coal blazed to life.
“When your servants find you, they’ll think you’ve been slain, of course,” the immortal continued. “Doubtless, they’ll summon the mortuary priests, who will bear your body to the House of Everlasting Life and prepare you for the ages to come. If you’re lucky, you’ll die when they remove your heart and seal it in a canopic jar. If not… you’ll have a very long time to regret you ever dreamt of crossing me.”
Arkhan touched the wick to the stave’s touch-hole. “The queen is dead,” he said to Lamashizzar, “but at least she’s free. I hope you rot in darkness until the end of time.”
The weapon discharged with a flash and a muffled thump. The impact knocked the king from his feet.
He hit the wall and slid to the floor, his body going limp. Arkhan knelt, staring into the king’s wide eyes, and then reached up with his fingertips to slowly push them shut.
Arkhan studied his handiwork a moment more, then rose and tossed the smoking weapon aside. The sky beyond the windows was paling. He was nearly out of time.
Snatching up his sword, he made his way across the bedchamber. His mind was already racing ahead, planning his route to the royal stables, when he heard a loud commotion in the chamber beyond.
Arkhan reached the doorway and saw a score of royal guardsmen dashing into the chamber from the direction of the garden, led by the king’s champion. Abhorash’s face was pale with fury. Two long iron swords gleamed in his scarred hands.
There would be no escape. Arkhan knew that at once. He was spent, and Abhorash was too skilled an opponent to be taken in by his tricks. For a moment, the immortal thought wistfully of the warhorse waiting in the stables, and the feel of the desert wind on his face.
He had his revenge upon the king. That would have to be enough. Raising his sword, Arkhan went to meet his fate.
The scope of the tragedy was immense, the carnage terrible to behold. The royal apartments looked like a battlefield, heaped with the mangled remains of Lamashizzar’s valiant guard. Though Abhorash, the king’s champion, had slain the assassin in the end, it was a bitter victory for the people of Lahmia. Lamashizzar, the great king, was dead.
It was a crushing blow for the royal household to bear. Functionaries and servants alike were overwhelmed by the news, not realising that it was only a fraction of the greater catastrophe. Only Ubaid, the grand vizier, and the few remaining servants of the Women’s Palace knew that Neferata was dead as well.
For a handful of hours, just after dawn, Ubaid held the fate of the city—and by extension, all of Nehekhara—in his hands. His first act was to order the king’s champion to seal off the palace, allowing none to enter or leave upon pain of death. One of the queen’s handmaidens was already missing, probably having fled in the small hours of the morning, but the rest of the household was kept from spreading the word to the city at large. Orders were given not to inform the king’s children of his death, at least not yet. That bought the palace precious hours to organise a proper response.
After careful consideration, the king’s privy council was summoned. Lords Ankhat and Ushoran answered the call at once, as well as the old scholar W’soran. Lord Zuhras, the king’s young cousin, could not be found for hours, having gone drinking with his friends in the Red Silk District the night before. It was mid-morning by the time his servants brought him, pale and trembling, to the palace gates.
While the council met in secret to discuss the shocking turn of events, the priests of the mortuary cult were quietly summoned to begin their ministrations to the dead. Rituals began at once for the great king, preparing his body for transfer to the House of Everlasting Life. The protocols for the queen were different. By tradition, her body was to be washed and clothed by her handmaidens, and at dusk they would bear her upon their shoulders to the Hall of Regretful Sorrows. There she would be given into the keeping of the priests, who would tend her while her body lay in state for the proscribed three days and three nights. Only then, after the citizens had been given time to pay their last respects, would Neferata join her husband in the House of Everlasting Life.
Shortly before the appointed hour, just as the sun was setting far out to sea, Ubaid, the grand vizier, appeared at the door to the queen’s bedchamber.
The last of the queen’s handmaidens—half a dozen women ranging in age from youthful to elderly—were crouched on their knees around the perimeter of the queen’s bed. The traditional preparation of the body had lasted for almost the entire day, and most of the handmaidens were slumped and silent with exhaustion. The rest rocked slowly on their heels, keening softly in mourning.
Ubaid stood in the doorway and carefully surveyed the room. He’d been told what the handmaidens had found when they’d entered the room that morning, but all traces of Arkhan’s desperate rituals had been scrupulously removed. The ritual circle had been scrubbed away, along with the pools of dried blood that had stained the floor around the bed. The bedclothes themselves had been stripped away, and now lay in a tightly wrapped bundle in one corner of the room. The grand vizier made a mental note to have them burned before the night was out.
Neferata lay on a bare white mattress, her body wrapped in a fine cotton robe that had been marked with hieroglyphs of protection and anointed with sacred oils. Her arms were folded across her chest, and her golden mask had been laid across her face. Only the bare skin of her hands, marked with intricate bands of henna tattoos, showed how cruelly wasted her body had been at the time of her death. The sight of it sent a pang of guilt through the grand vizier, but he stifled it with an effort of will. What was done was done. His responsibility now was to look to the future, and ensure the continuation of the dynasty.
One of the older handmaidens caught sight of Ubaid and straightened. “You shouldn’t be here!” she said. “It’s not proper!”
“These are not proper times,” Ubaid replied. He approached the bed. As one, the handmaidens scrambled to their feet, forming an implacable barrier between him and their charge.
The grand vizier addressed the old handmaiden. “Forgive the intrusion,” he said, inclining his head respectfully. “I meant no disrespect. This has been a hard day for us all, and I wanted to make certain that the queen and her quarters had been seen to properly.”
“We know our duty,” the handmaiden said, folding her arms indignantly. “Do you imagine we would allow any slight to her honour?”
“No, naturally not,” Ubaid replied. “It must have been hard, preparing the queen and… restoring her chamber to its proper appearance. Did you manage all of it alone?”
“Just the six of us,” she replied grimly, though her head was held high. “We couldn’t trust such an important task to anyone else.”
“Yes, of course,” the grand vizier said, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief. He studied each of the handmaidens in turn, committing their faces to memory. All of them would have to die. Hopefully they would all choose to follow the queen into the afterlife, but if not, he would take matters into his own hands. Once they were gone, there would be no one left who knew the real circumstances of Neferata’s death.
The cabal—what was left of it—could continue its work in secret. Ubaid had little doubt that W’soran would be able to take up where the queen left off. Lord Ankhat or Lord Ushoran would be named regent, and life in the city would go on much as before. In fact, the gr
and vizier thought, the opportunities for power and influence for the surviving cabal members would be even greater.
Ubaid took a step back and composed himself, then bowed solemnly to the handmaidens. “It is time,” he said. “The priests and the privy council await in the Hall of Regretful Sorrows. Let the people of Lahmia look upon Neferata one final time, and weep.”
The handmaidens grew subdued at the grand vizier’s solemn words. The old one sighed and gestured to her companions, and they turned their attention once more to their beloved queen. Three of the women circled around to the far side of the bed, then they all hung their heads and intoned a ceremonial prayer to Usirian, god of the underworld. Ubaid listened to the low, mournful chant, as the sun sank low on the horizon and the light fled from the room. The prayer came to an end, and the chamber was plunged into a funereal gloom. As one, the handmaidens began their keening wail again, and bent over the queen’s recumbent form.
Suddenly, there came a dreadful sound from the bed. It was a faint, wet, rippling crackle, like the popping of joints grown stiff from disuse. Then the keening of the handmaidens spiralled into a threnody of horrified screams.
Bone crunched and flesh parted with a sound like a knife through wet cloth. The two handmaidens closest to the head of the bed were hurled backwards in a welter of blood, their throats reduced to ragged pulp. Ubaid’s stunned mind barely had time to register the horrifying sight before there was a blur of motion above the bed and the sickening sound of crunching bone. Two more handmaidens collapsed, their skulls crushed by swift and terrible blows.
There was scarcely time to breathe, much less react. The last of the queen’s devoted servants seemed to reel away from the bed in slow motion, their hands rising to their faces as a lithe, bloodstained figure reached for them with gaunt, grasping hands.
The grand vizier stared in shock as Neferata lashed out at one of the handmaidens with an open hand. The blow crushed the woman’s skull like a melon and flung her corpse against the far wall. The last of the handmaidens, younger and swifter than the rest, turned and fled towards Ubaid, her hands outstretched and her face twisted into a mask of absolute terror.
She managed less than a half-dozen steps before Neferata leapt upon her back like a desert lioness. Fingers tipped with long, curving claws sank into the handmaiden’s throat. The impact jarred the golden death mask from the queen’s face, its cold, smooth perfection falling away to reveal the snarling face of a monster.
The queen’s face was horribly gaunt, her cheeks sunken and the flesh stretched like parchment across the planes of her face. Her eyes were twin points of cold, pitiless light, shining with animal hunger as she fell upon her prey. Neferata’s shrivelled lips were drawn back in a feral snarl, her delicate jaw agape to reveal prominent, leonine fangs. The handmaiden scarcely had time to scream before the queen’s head plunged downward and those terrible fangs sank into the young woman’s throat. Flesh tore and vertebrae popped, and the girl’s screams dwindled into a choking rattle.
Ubaid pressed a trembling fist to his mouth, biting back a scream of his own. His legs trembled, threatening to betray him completely as he backed towards the bedchamber door. No matter how hard he tried, he could not take his eyes from the handmaiden’s body. He dared not turn and run.
Each step lasted an eternity. The handmaiden’s body twitched as the queen worried at her throat, gorging on the young woman’s blood. He had to be close to the doorway now, Ubaid thought. Another few feet at most, and then—
Suddenly the grand vizier realised that the sounds of feasting had stopped. Neferata’s head was raised, her mouth and chin soaked in bright, red blood. His own veins turned to ice as she turned her unearthly gaze upon him.
“Ubaid,” she said, her voice liquid and menacing. The power of her stare left him transfixed. His heart laboured painfully in his chest. “Loyal servant. Fall to your knees before your queen.”
The grand vizier’s body obeyed. His knees cracked painfully on the stone as he all but prostrated himself before Neferata’s terrifying visage.
The queen smiled, her teeth slick with gore. Her eyes glinted cruelly.
“Now tell me all that has transpired.”
The gathering in the Hall of Regretful Sorrows was silent and subdued. The only sounds in the vault-like space were the soft sounds of the mortuary priests’ robes as they went about their preparations to receive the body of the queen. Votive incense had been lit, and the proper sigils of preservation had been laid across the marble bier. Lord Abhorash stood at the foot of the cold slab of stone, his head bowed and his hands resting upon the hilt of an ancient ceremonial sword. Lord Ushoran and Lord Ankhat stood apart from one another, each lost in their own thoughts as they contemplated the difficult days ahead.
When news of the king’s death became widely known it would send ripples throughout the entire land. It would require adroit manoeuvring to keep the other priest kings in check. Behind the powerful nobles, W’soran stood with his hands folded at his waist and his head bowed, as though in prayer. The old sholar had an impatient expression on his face. He now had unfettered access to Nagash’s works, and he was eager to begin his studies. Behind W’soran stood young Lord Zuhras, who lingered close to the door as though he might bolt from the hall at any second. The king’s cousin looked pale and stricken, though from grief or guilt, none could truly say.
They had been waiting for more than an hour already, having gathered long before sunset to view the body of the queen. It had already been decided that once Neferata’s body had been laid in state, the word of her and Lamashizzar’s death would be announced to the city. When the doors at the far end of the chamber swung silently opened, a stir went through the small assembly as they braced for the beginning of a new era.
None expected to see the queen emerge from the shadows of the Women’s Palace, pale and terrible in her glory. Her beauty, once the gift of the goddess, now took on a divine power all its own. They did not see the dark blood that stained her white robes and painted her hands and face. Her eyes, dark and depthless as the sea, banished thought and replaced it with a yearning that was deeper and more all consuming than any they had known before.
Beside the queen came Ubaid, the grand vizier. He stepped past Neferata, head bowed and shoulders hunched. He descended the shallow steps that led to the waiting bier, and regarded the assembly with haunted, hollow eyes.
“Rejoice,” he said in a bleak voice. “Rejoice at the coming of the queen.”
FOURTEEN
The Dark Feast
The Plain of Skulls, in the 76th year of Phakth the Just
(-1597 Imperial Reckoning)
The warriors of the Forsaken had pitched their tents upon the Plain of Skulls, a broad, roughly triangular plain some three leagues north-east of the Sour Sea. As the only navigable terrain between the coastline and the village-forts of the northlanders, the plain was where the barbarians—or the Yaghur, as Hathurk knew them—and the Forsaken had met to do battle for centuries. By ancient custom, the warbands of both sides normally encamped along the northern and southern edges of the plain, but after a series of recent victories of the Yaghur, the northlanders were no longer abiding by the old rules. They had taken note of the absence of the Keepers, and believed that the strength of the tribes had been broken. The destruction of the Yaghur was finally at hand.
For the last month, Forsaken raiding parties had struck southward from the plain at will, destroying a number of lowland settlements and storming a pair of hilltop villages. They left behind heaps of charred skulls as offerings to their four-faced god, Malakh, and sent scouts further westward to test the defences of the remaining Yaghur villages. Unless they were driven off the plain, the Forsaken would decimate the Yaghur to the point that the survivors would have little chance of surviving the winter.
According to Hathurk, the war between the Forsaken and the Yaghur had nothing to do with resources or territory; there was nothing the Yaghur possessed that the Forsaken co
uld possibly desire. Indeed, according to Hathurk, the Forsaken once ruled the entire coast, down past the great mountain where a narrow strait led to the great Crystal Sea. It was they who had witnessed the fall of the star-stone that had pierced the side of the mountain, and who had built a great temple-city to venerate their newfound god. They had used the power of the burning stone to dominate the surrounding tribes and carve out a kingdom of their own. In those days, they were known as the Yaghur, which in Hathurk’s tongue translated as “the faithful”.
But the kingdom’s glory days were short-lived. The noble houses, which ruled from the temple-city on the southern flank of the mountain, turned paranoid and cruel. Madness infected the ruling clans, and soon the kingdom was torn by civil war. Clans fought over the god-stone buried beneath the mountain, and thousands died. Finally, the noble houses of the Yaghur were overthrown when an exiled prince returned from the northlands with the teachings of a new god: Malakh, the Dark One, Master of the Fourfold Path. Malakh’s power gained the prince many followers, and in time they conquered the temple city and slaughtered the maddened Yaghur nobles in a grand sacrifice to their god.
Afterwards, the prince sealed up the tunnels beneath the temple city and led his people northwards, where they settled far from the mountain and its corrupting god. But the insatiable desires of Malakh turned out to be just as bad—if not worse—than the lunatic rule of the old Yaghur kings, and once again the people were torn by civil war. Eventually, a schism occurred. Those who rejected Malakh broke away and returned to the shores of the Sour Sea in a vain bid to reclaim the glories of the kingdom they had lost.
The war had raged ever since. The Forsaken would not rest until the last Yaghur had been offered up to their four-faced god. Malakh would be satisfied with nothing less.
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