Blood coated her hands – hers, Layla’s – and it seemed to form the features of a man, proud and arrogant in her cupped palms. The human face rippled and melted, becoming something else entirely. Something that was not human in the least, and it gazed up at her as if looking through a gauzy sheet. A name seemed to swim to the surface of her thoughts, but she could not see it, not clearly, and the unfamiliar syllables died on the base of her tongue before she could even utter a breath. Swiftly she brought her palms together and wiped the blood across her robes.
‘Neferata,’ Naaima said.
‘Nothing,’ Neferata said. ‘It was nothing.’
And in her head, something laughed.
SEVEN
The City of Bel Aliad
(–1151 Imperial Reckoning)
In the months that she languished in captivity, Neferata learned much about those gifts that she had wrested from the sinister brew flowing in her veins. While she had always been able to control the minds of others, she now had a more precise control over lesser minds. She amused herself by bringing insects to the sarcophagus. Beetles and worms and spiders now clustered around her in the dark, crawling through her hair and sliding every so often into her mouth, where her fangs closed on them like a trap and extinguished their tiny lives. Each of these provided her with the briefest surge of strength, which was quickly sapped away by the wood piercing her heart.
She needed something larger than spiders and flies. It was a pity that there were no rats. Her flesh had tightened over her bones, becoming dry and hard like leather, and her hair, what she could see of it, had turned a filthy white. A long time ago, such changes might have tormented her. Now, however, she knew that flesh was much like a set of robes, changing to fit circumstance.
Besides bugs, she made the acquaintance of Khaled’s sister, Anmar. She was a pretty girl, still gangly and in the dawn of womanhood. Like her brother, she was a child of the harem, and he doted on her. And she, in turn, looked up to him. Even as Khalida had looked up to her cousin Neferata, before–
The thought brought pain. Neferata shoved the errant memory aside. Khalida was dead, as Naaima never failed to remind her. Dead and entombed for over a century, after refusing the gift Neferata had offered her, the foolish, stupid girl.
But Anmar was more receptive to the whispers of Neferata’s voice. The girl had taken to sneaking into her brother’s secret chambers. Mere curiosity became something else as Neferata’s psychic hooks sank into her mind.
Until, finally…
‘What are you doing in here?’ Khaled roared, grabbing his sister by the arm and wrenching her away from the sarcophagus. If she had been able to, Neferata would have hissed in frustration. The girl had been moments away from opening the sarcophagus and freeing her.
‘I was just looking–’ Anmar began, trying to yank her arm free of her brother’s grip.
‘Don’t!’ Khaled snarled, hurling her against the wall. The girl cried out and Khaled’s rage evaporated. He stared at his hands for a moment, and then rushed to her side. ‘I’m sorry little sister, I did not mean to hurt you,’ he said, helping her to her feet.
Khaled, Neferata whispered.
He froze. He straightened and looked at the sarcophagus, his face pale and sweaty. ‘K-Khaled,’ Anmar began as she reached for her brother. ‘What is it? It’s been speaking to me. What do you have in there?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing…’
Khaaaaled, Neferata purred. The tendrils of her mind unfurled, caressing his. He shuddered.
‘Get out of my head, witch. I’ve told you before, I will not listen to you,’ he said, grinding his fists into his eyes.
‘Khaled, who are you talking to?’ Anmar said. She glanced at the sarcophagus, and went as pale as her brother. ‘Is it… is it her? Is what the maids said true? Did you really… keep her?’
Aaaanmaaar, Neferata hissed, as she felt the girl’s gaze fall on the sarcophagus.
‘Who is that?’ Anmar said, looking to her brother for reassurance. ‘What is in that box, Khaled?’
‘Just an old dead thing,’ Khaled snapped. ‘It is of no consequence.’
No consequence, am I? Neferata said, vaguely amused. Then why do you stink of fear, my fierce Kontoi?
‘Quiet,’ Khaled shouted.
Perhaps it is because you fear yourself, and not this old dead thing, Neferata said. You fear your desires, Khaled… What do you want, my love? I will give it to you. All you have to do is–
‘I said be quiet!’ Khaled shrieked. He wrenched the lid open and glared at her. She could see herself reflected in his eyes, a mummified thing, covered with crawling insects, withered talons clutching the splintered shaft of wood that jutted from her heart. He fell back, gagging. Her jaws twitched, crunching a centipede between them. Anmar screamed.
Quiet, girl, Neferata hissed. Anmar’s jaw slammed shut and her hands flew to her mouth.
‘Leave her be, hag!’ Khaled snarled. He grabbed the end of the stake and jammed it deeper into her. Neferata’s withered frame shuddered. Her head slumped to the side and her staring eyes caught his, freezing him in place.
Why would I do that, Khaled? she said. Why would I do that when I am so thirsty?
Khaled pulled himself away from her. ‘No!’
So thirsty, Neferata said, not letting him break eye contact with her. Her will crashed down on him like a black wave. For weeks, her mind had wormed its way into his, even as it had Anmar’s. He had come incessantly to gloat over her, to speak of his dreams and plans and desires.
He wanted to be caliph, did young Khaled. But he was the son of a concubine and thus not in line for the throne, and besides, there were a dozen brothers ahead of him.
But I can change all of that, Khaled, she said, and he leaned close. You know I can. Abhorash told you, didn’t he? He told you what I am and what my kiss can give you, she continued. Her thoughts became his thoughts, and trapped his mind in a fog of red.
‘Khaled,’ Anmar quavered, reaching for him. ‘Please Khaled, close it…’
Free me, Neferata said. Free me!
‘Khaled…’
Khaled’s fingers tightened on the wood. Then, with a convulsive jerk, he ripped it free of her heart. Neferata sucked in a lungful of dry air and emitted a shriek, her long unused vocal cords flexing painfully. But mingled with the pain was the raw pleasure of life renewed. Life, so long denied her, flowed through her dry veins and she stretched, feeling the air and listening to the sound of her prey’s hearts as their rhythm sped up. The sweet smell of fear filled her nostrils and she hissed in pleasure.
Khaled stared stupidly at the splinter of wood in his hand, then up at Neferata. Her eyes blazed with a hunger long denied. ‘Yessss,’ she said.
‘Oh, no,’ Khaled said, stepping back, horror suffusing his features. ‘Anmar, get out of here!’
‘Khaled – what–’ Anmar began fearfully.
‘Run!’ Khaled screamed, lunging for Neferata with the wood. She uncoiled from the sarcophagus, leaping over him and landing between his sister and the door.
‘Too late, my Kontoi,’ Neferata rasped, claws flexing. She caught Anmar as the girl backpedalled. ‘Too late…’ Her fangs sank into the girl’s neck as savagely as those of a starving jackal. She worried the girl’s throat, tearing flesh and cracking bone, her tongue stabbing hungrily into the wound.
Khaled howled with loathing as he smashed the wooden spike into her shoulder. She snarled, dropping the half-dead girl, and batted his improvised weapon from his grip. Then, with sinister tenderness, she took his face in her hands and kissed him, smearing his mouth with his sister’s blood. He grabbed ineffectually at her wrists as she pulled him close.
‘Do not struggle, my love,’ she purred. ‘Soon you shall have all that you desire. This, I promise…’
The City of Mourkain
(–600 Imperial Recko
ning)
The sun had been blotted out by thick clouds that spread like oil across the sky, as well as the surging, wheeling flocks of carrion birds that circled overhead waiting for the day’s reaping to be done. Unfortunately, Neferata had no time to admire the graceful curve of the birds’ flight.
The orc crested the palisade, venting a full-throated bellow of berserk murder-lust as it took off a Strigoi’s head with its crude axe. Neferata wove around the tumbling body and impaled the orc on her blade, causing it to stiffen and scream. She jerked her sword free in a crescent of blood and spun, lopping off its head as she came back around.
Even as its twitching carcass tumbled to the palisade ramp, more of them were pushing to fill the gap. Daubed in brutal, blue tattoos and war-paint and animal skins, they came at her in a rush. Their minds were too dull to enrapture with her dark skills, and she settled for dealing out quicksilver death. Stepping over the bodies, she saw that the others were faring similarly well.
Khaled, clad in the armour of one of Ushoran’s guard, cut and slashed in the wedge of metal and flesh that defended the master of Mourkain as he struggled with one of the warlords of the green horde that crashed like an ocean tide against his walls. Ushoran was wearing armour himself, eschewing his more bestial habits in order to play the hero for his people.
Like always when he was in public, Ushoran wore the face of a god. Painfully handsome, strongly built, he towered over his guards and at times, he seemed to be protecting them, rather than vice-versa. The orc was a large one, a full head taller than Ushoran. The beast wore the skins of a dozen wolves stretched and stitched over its frame, and carried a length of crudely beaten and sharpened bronze like a sword.
It whipped the sword at Ushoran, seeking to decapitate him. Ushoran stepped back, letting the curved tip of the blade slice past his chin. As the orc staggered, off-balance, he slid close and drove his own sword into the creature’s gut. It howled in agony and dropped its sword, grabbing Ushoran’s head in its paws. Ushoran was slammed down hard enough to crack the palisade, but he showed no sign that the impact had hurt him. He reached up and grabbed the orc’s tusk, jerking its head down. Their skulls connected with an audible crunch, and the orc staggered back, minus its tusk, which Ushoran still clutched.
The vampire sprang to his feet and lunged, jabbing the orc in the throat with its tusk, while simultaneously reaching for the hilt of his sword, still lodged in the orc’s belly. He jerked the sword free and swept it up, chopping the orc’s skull in half, jaw to brow. It toppled from the palisade, knocking a number of other green-skinned savages off in its descent.
He looked at her, his face a mask of blood, and grinned. He was enjoying the fight, she knew. ‘How heroic,’ she murmured, blocking a spear-thrust aimed at her heart. She flung out a hand and tore the orc’s throat out, even as she pivoted and hurled it behind her.
As Neferata turned she saw Abhorash leap from the palisade and chop down through the bull-neck of the giant that had steadily been trying to uproot a section of the palisade for the better part of the last hour. ‘Speaking of heroes,’ she murmured, grabbing an orc by the neck and shaking it hard enough to shatter its bones. She hurled it from the wall with a disgusted grimace as its foul blood splattered across the ornate cuirass she wore. Abhorash had been recalled from the eastern frontier, where he had been dealing with the ogre tribes that infested the hills there, and he had thrown himself into this new war with as much enthusiasm as he ever showed for anything.
He chopped at the giant’s neck as it staggered and fell, his sword rising and falling like a butcher’s knife, and his aquiline face was twisted into an expression of bestial exultation. Abhorash lived for battle. He had a will of iron, until the sky darkened with arrows and the soil ran with blood and then his savagery put even Ushoran’s to shame. She watched the decapitated giant sway on its feet before toppling forwards. It took the bigger ones a long time to realise that they were dead. She could practically hear W’soran’s greedy chuckle now. The giant, even headless, would make excellent labour for the mines.
The giant slumped over the palisade, and Abhorash, ever at the forefront, bounded towards the orcs that swarmed up its bent body like ants. He crashed into the oncoming green wave like a rock set against the tide. An orc burst at the point of impact, Abhorash literally tearing through the creature as if it were of no more bother than a linen curtain. Other orcs were flung aside like gnats. Abhorash grabbed one as it flipped into the air, snatching it by one ankle and wielding it like a living, screaming flail against the others. Only when the creature had been reduced to a bedraggled mess did he toss it aside and continue his rampage.
‘He plays the part well, whatever else he might be,’ Naaima said, snapping an orc’s arm as it swung an axe at her head. Like Neferata, she wore the black and red enamelled armour that Ushoran’s smiths had gifted to them. It was far more ornate than that which they had worn in Nehekhara, being all flaring ridges and sharp edges. ‘And speaking of playing parts, Khaled ably defends Ushoran, I see,’ she added, frowning as she bent the orc backwards over the palisade and broke its back.
‘He is magnificent,’ Anmar said, leaping up to perch on the palisade wall even as she kicked an orc in the skull hard enough to crumple the bone and send it flailing to the rocky slope below.
‘Referring to your brother or Lord Abhorash, little leopard?’ Rasha said as she stabbed a wounded orc as it lunged awkwardly for the other vampire. She hefted the kicking, bawling beast and sent it spinning from the palisade.
‘Both,’ Anmar said simply, craning her head around to look at her blood-sister. ‘Do not say you have not noticed,’ she added, teasingly.
‘Not my type,’ Rasha said, sniffing, leaning on her blade. She brushed a lock of bloody hair out of her sharp face and looked at her mistress. ‘Still, he is useful, in a rather blunt, unimaginative way, eh, my lady?’
‘Sometimes a hammer is the right tool,’ Neferata said. Down below, Abhorash had been joined by his ‘Hand’ – the four companions who had fought beside him since the fall of Lahmia. The four vampires were an aloof lot, bound to their captain by blood and honour. Regardless, they fought for Strigos with a vigour that few could match. Together, the five vampires carved a path through the heart of the orc horde, butchering the savages with abandon.
‘Speaking of hammers,’ Neferata murmured and looked away from the battle, searching for Vorag. The Bloodytooth was not at the forefront, as he would’ve liked. Instead, he and his riders waited behind the palisade. It was Abhorash’s plan, of course. Wait for the orcs to break themselves on the palisade and then let Vorag’s riders harry them as they retreated. It was an effective plan, and sensible, which meant that Vorag saw it as an insult.
She had convinced Ushoran to recall the timagal, despite the fact that Vorag’s own lands were the scene of the harshest fighting. Ushoran even thought it was his idea. Vorag had been forced to leave his hard-won territories to be engulfed beneath the green tide, and Neferata could tell that he was seething even from a distance. And beside him, blonde and bloodthirsty, Stregga was whispering sweet nothings into his ear, calming him and simultaneously enflaming his hatreds even more. Neferata smiled.
She carefully wiped the expression off her face as the thud of armoured boots sounded and Ushoran approached, mopping at the blood on his too-handsome face with a ragged strip of cloth. ‘They’re close to breaking,’ Neferata said.
‘You had doubts?’ Ushoran sneered. Orc blood had collected and dried in the grooves and swooping curves of his armour. ‘They are beasts. We have more trouble with rats in the granaries.’
‘Overconfidence is an attractive trait in a man, but not a ruler,’ Neferata said mildly, resting the flat of her blade across her shoulder.
‘And as always, I bow to your previous experience,’ Ushoran replied blandly. He frowned. ‘I grow tired of this. We should be expanding, not merely holding what we have.’ H
e kicked petulantly at a green-skinned corpse. ‘I want to do something about this, about them.’ He looked at Neferata. ‘Do something. Earn your keep.’
Neferata raised a delicately plucked eyebrow. ‘I’ll need men and gold, as well.’
‘Yes, fine! Fine,’ Ushoran said, waving a hand. ‘You can have it all. I grow weary of slaughtering these creatures. I need a real war. And prisoners…’ His eyes were unfocused and his gaze drifted towards the black pyramid. ‘Yes,’ he said, shaking himself, ‘prisoners.’
It was only a gentle caress, but Neferata knew that Ushoran was hearing the needle-on-bone voice again, even as she herself sometimes heard it. It spoke to him more often, and she was still unsure as to whether she should be relieved or jealous.
You could be queen again. You could belong to Usirian, and not the jealous moon. Your charnel kingdom would spread like rot through a fruit, and the whole world would sing hymns to your wisdoms and mercies–
Ushoran was looking at her, his eyes glowing like balefire. She blinked and looked away. Whether she was jealous or not, Ushoran certainly was. Why else would he avoid all of her attempts to discuss the presence which had drawn her to Mourkain? He knew that she heard it, even as she knew that he heard it. Abhorash heard it as well, and probably W’soran, though she hadn’t cared enough to inquire. It was a mystery, and Neferata hated mysteries. Ushoran had the key, and one way or another she intended to get it out of him.
Now wasn’t the time to bring that argument up again, however. ‘A real war requires participants. And the orcs have succeeded in putting paid to the ambitions of every petty chieftain for two mountain ranges,’ Neferata said, attempting to allay suspicion with speculation.
‘What of it?’ Ushoran said.
‘Those chieftains might be willing to do our work for us,’ Khaled said, from just behind Ushoran. The latter glanced at him. ‘Let the savages tear each other apart. It saves us the trouble, my king,’ he added, bowing obsequiously.
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