Her hair crisped and crackled like cloth in a cooking fire and her face split and shrank against her bones as she sank her fangs into Ushoran’s throat. He howled and bucked, pummelling her with burning fists. They thrashed and fought, rolling across the floor. She worried the flesh of his throat, the blood boiling from the heat even as it reached her mouth.
‘Off – get off,’ he yowled, muscles heaving beneath his charred skin as he slapped her aside. She spun through the air and struck the wall, dropping bonelessly to the floor. The flames winked out, leaving them both blackened wrecks. Neferata cracked a crisped eyelid.
More of the obese ghoul-things had come into the chamber while she had been gone, and not just them. Smaller ghouls and the dead men who served W’soran as his guard filled the hall, surrounding her followers.
Stupid. She had been stupid to come here. Ushoran coughed and scrambled to his feet, his charred flesh cracking and sloughing off. He had been burned before and he shook it off with the speed of experience. His claws scraped the floor as he made his way towards her. His previous berserk rage seemed to have left him, and he looked deflated and weary.
‘You see?’ he croaked. ‘Even in death, he denies us our due. The crown is ours by right. With it, we can recreate that which was lost.’
Neferata pushed herself to her feet. The voice of the crown – Nagash’s voice – was back, smashing at her doubts and worries and fears. For an instant, she wondered if this was how others felt when she turned her gaze upon them.
The instant was washed away by visions of a great city, not quite Mourkain or Lahmia, but a blending of both. It was a city of possibilities, a city of could-be and will-be; a city ruled forever by a night-hearted aristocracy, where she would sup on the blood of princes and kings as all the rulers of the world bowed at her sandalled feet, and on her brow, a crown.
Crown and throne, Neferata, it purred. Goddess and queen, Neferata – that is what you will be. All yours…
Did Ushoran hear the same? Did it speak to him in the same soothing tones? Did it make the same promises? Perhaps it had even done so for Kadon.
‘You have done your best to keep me on my throne,’ Ushoran hissed. ‘You have done this even as you have schemed to supplant me in the minds of my subjects. That is why I ask you this now. Help me, Neferata.’ He half-reached for her, with a trembling claw. ‘You want Lahmia back, just as I do, just as Abhorash does, and W’soran.
‘Help me,’ he said again. ‘Help me put the world back to rights, Neferata.’
Take the crown and the throne and the WORLD…
The lessons of the past crumbled in an instant, like the dead flesh which drifted from her burned limbs like black snow. All that was left was desire.
‘As my king commands,’ Neferata said, taking Ushoran’s hand with her own.
TWELVE
The City of Lashiek
(–1147 Imperial Reckoning)
Neferata led her handmaidens through the crowded streets of the Corsair City, her robes and cowl pulled close about her, and a veil of hammered gold discs hiding her face from the sun. There was a ship waiting for them in the harbour. It was to take them to Sartosa, across the sea. The streets were full of merchants, mercenaries and refugees, all going in every direction at once. Overhead sea-birds wheeled, croaking, and mangy dogs trotted through the streets.
She stopped as a group of soldiers, clad in silks and bronze, marched past in ragged formation, pennons snapping from their spear-points. It galled Neferata to abandon Araby. Bel Aliad was a smoking ruin, thanks to Arkhan, and the other caliphates reeled under his continued assault. Armies of the dead trod the Spice Road, harrying what forces the caliphates could muster, and Araby was no longer a place for patient schemes and subtle machinations. But that did not mean that such would always be the case.
She caught sight of a flash of red. ‘There she is,’ Naaima murmured a moment later, standing behind her mistress. She gestured towards a shisha house on the other side of the street. Naaima and the others were dressed much as Neferata was, all save Khaled, who wore the armour and full-face helm of a Kontoi. Ragged silk strips hung limply from the spiral point that topped his helm and his cloak was ragged and threadbare. His eyes were haunted behind the chainmail mask that covered his face.
The destruction of Bel Aliad had struck him hard. Every desire and dream that he had nurtured to his breast for the past decade had vanished like a wisp of smoke, leaving him empty of either ambition or energy. Anmar was equally shaken, but had chosen not to emulate her brother’s apathy, instead throwing herself into Neferata’s schemes with admirable abandon. For Khaled, Bel Aliad had been a kingdom to be won. For his sister, however, it had been little more than a cage.
Neferata led her followers towards the shisha house. Men sat on reed mats outside of it, inhaling sweetly scented smoke from a waterpipe. Anmar sat on a similar mat within, wearing a bright crimson robe. She looked up as they entered and laid a hand on the arm of the woman who crouched nervously beside her. The woman was a slave, and pale-skinned like the barbarian tribes who inhabited the far north. ‘My lady,’ Anmar said. ‘The ship is ready whenever we are.’
Neferata nodded and glanced at the slave, who trembled and turned away. The woman stank of fear. Anmar gently stroked her neck, calming her. ‘Ilsa here is a servant of the Dowager Concubine, aren’t you, Ilsa?’ Anmar said softly. The young vampire’s eyes glinted. ‘She has agreed to your offer, mistress, and has sent Ilsa as a gift. The girl speaks the language of Sartosa. The Dowager thought she might translate for us upon our arrival.’
Neferata smiled beneath her veil. Though she was leaving Araby for greener pastures, her influence would remain. The Dowager Concubine was the ruler of the Corsair City in all but name, and with her protection, Neferata’s servants would flourish. When she had re-settled herself, she would re-establish her influence in the caliphates for as long as they stood.
She knelt and reached out, taking the terrified slave-girl’s chin. Neferata smiled and held the girl’s gaze, soothing her and mesmerising her. ‘I’m sure that she will come in handy in one fashion or another,’ she murmured…
Nagashizzar
(–328 Imperial Reckoning)
The air stank of rot and swamp gas, and scavenger birds spun through the overcast sky. There was no sun in these lands, and there hadn’t been for hundreds of years. In the Desolation of Nagash, it was always grey and dark and foul, a reflection of its creator’s soul. Nagashizzar was a twisted blend of mountain and fortress, and it loomed above the dead land like a monolith to a forgotten god.
It had taken them the better part of a year to reach the shores of the Sour Sea from Mourkain, and Neferata climbed swiftly, ignoring the tiny avalanches her movement set loose. Her patience had worn thin over the months of journeying and she was eager to reach her goal. The others followed at some distance. Ahead of her, Layla moved with inhuman grace, leaping and climbing, marking the safe path. ‘I smell ghouls,’ the girl called back.
‘These mountains are filthy with them,’ Morath said from below. The necromancer climbed slowly and cautiously, lacking the grace of his protectors. ‘There are thousands of warrens in these hills, thanks to Nagash.’
‘I would have thought that they’d have left,’ Rasha said, helping Morath climb. ‘When he died, I mean.’
‘Where would they go?’ Morath said. ‘When they were human, before Nagash corrupted them, Cripple Peak was their home. That ancestral memory keeps them here, lurking in the blighted shadow of Nagashizzar.’
‘The question is not their presence, but their intentions. I would not fight unless we have no choice,’ Neferata said, stopping to wait for the others to catch up. ‘This journey has taken up too much time as it is.’
‘It may take even longer, I fear,’ Morath said, leaning on his walking stick. He looked bad, cadaverous even, as if his human vitality were being leached away by their s
urroundings and replaced by something else. ‘Nagashizzar is massive, according to W’soran. It may be months before we find a safe way inside, let alone find that which we seek.’
‘Which is?’ Layla said, dropping down to perch bird-like above Neferata.
‘You should listen more than you natter, girl,’ Rasha said.
Layla stuck her tongue out between her fangs. Neferata chuckled. She reached up to yank on the braid of hair that dangled from the girl’s head. ‘We seek one of the Books of Nagash, child. One that W’soran seems certain is still hidden somewhere in this stinking pile.’
‘Implying it’s one that the old thief didn’t manage to steal when he fled,’ Rasha said.
‘There were nine of them,’ Morath said, looking up towards the high towers of Nagashizzar, shrouded in grey mist. ‘Nine books in all, comprising all of Nagash’s knowledge on the subject of death.’ Morath raised a hand. ‘W’soran stole one, as did Arkhan the Black. The other seven, however…’ He gestured limply. For more than two decades, Neferata had aided the necromancer in hunting down every scrap of information about those books. Her agents had scoured Araby, Cathay and Ind, hunting stories and memories. Neferata herself had travelled to the decadent coastal cities of the Black Gulf and hunted a certain Abdul ben Rashid through the Street of Booksellers in Copher, where she had torn him apart in broad daylight after he refused to hand over his necromantic scribbling.
And in two decades, all signs had pointed towards Nagashizzar.
‘Like as not, rats chewed them to rags and ghouls use them as loincloths,’ Rasha said. Morath glared at her, but said nothing. Neferata smiled. Necromancers were precious about their parchments and papyri.
‘We’d best hope not, my huntress,’ Neferata said, turning to continue on. ‘We need them.’ I need them, she thought. W’soran had sworn that those books had the secret to binding Alcadizzar’s angry ghost and freeing Nagash’s crown from his clutches. And Neferata wanted that crown. It was the only reason she had agreed to Ushoran’s mad plan of an expedition to Cripple Peak. It had taken them months to get here, and would likely take them months more to find those books, barring interruptions.
A shrill cry echoed from the rocks, rebounding down the spine of the mountain. Neferata’s head jerked up, and her nostrils flared. She smelled sour blood and rotting meat. It seemed that someone had come to greet the visitors. They had been forced to fight more than once on their trip through the Desolation, battling mutant beasts and the degenerate tribes of savages who clustered on the shores of the Sour Sea, but it had been days since they’d left the territory of the tribes behind.
A tumble of rocks rattled down from above, nearly dislodging Layla, who yelped as she was struck. Rasha shielded Morath and Neferata swatted a rock aside with her hand. A group of men would have likely been discomfited by the rock fall. For vampires, it was barely an annoyance.
‘Rasha, stay beside Morath!’ Neferata barked, drawing her sword. ‘Layla, get back here and help her!’
‘But–’ Layla began, searching for the creature that had dared to drop rocks on her.
‘Now,’ Neferata snarled, bounding up the slope with more speed than caution. ‘Keep the sorcerer breathing, whatever else happens.’
Over the years, Neferata had become intimately familiar with the methods and manner of the corpse-eaters. Where there was death, there were the eaters-of-the-dead. They had a society of sorts, and kings and queens and lords and ladies. They were a mockery of the men they had descended from, but even mockery has a kernel of truth.
But these ghouls were not like the almost-tame creatures that scampered through the tunnels beneath Mourkain, or the organised tribes of Araby. No, these mountain-ghouls were a breed apart. It was akin to the difference between wolves and dogs. Hidden tunnel mouths suddenly vomited clay-crusted simian shapes. The ghouls boiled from their tunnel like wasps from a disturbed nest, their ape-like agility propelling them down towards her from all directions. They had painted their flesh with clay and filth, and some carried sharpened bones as weapons. Most, however, seemed to content to use their claws and teeth.
Neferata shrieked, casting her voice at them like a weapon. Several dozen stumbled to a halt, tripping up those immediately behind them. Neferata was on them a moment later. Her sword slashed across the front rank, gutting four of the creatures and lopping the arms from a fifth. She pressed her attack, aware that even with all of her strength the creatures could pull her down through sheer weight of numbers. She had to break them; they were scavengers by nature, and would retreat if their prey looked to be too strong.
Her elbow came down between the head and shoulders of a ghoul, shattering its neck even as her leg swept out. Her foot crushed a slavering jaw and the force of the kick spun the ghoul in place, dropping it dead to the rocks. Her sword darted out, chopping like a cleaver into grey flesh. Severed limbs lay heaped on the ground as she created a corridor of death through the ghoul ranks.
Alone, Neferata had blunted the momentum of the ambush. The ghouls scrambled back from her, yelping and howling. Many retreated for their holes, but more stayed. Greasy bodies crashed into her as they sought to drag her down. When she killed one, two more took its place. Hooked claws tore her flesh and she returned the favour. She was in constant motion, her feet and hands crushing skulls and splintering bones even as her sword removed heads and spilled intestines.
For a moment, the snarling creatures that swirled around her wore the faces of enemies new and old, of every obstacle that stood in her path – Razek and Al-Khattab, Lamashizzar and Khalida, Khaled and Ushoran. Obstacle and enemy were interchangeable concepts for Neferata and she wondered, in the bliss of bloodletting, when that had become the case.
Then the moment passed and she stood alone, drenched in blood. The survivors squatted around her, stinking of fear, their yellow gazes riveted on her. It was ever the way with the corpse-eaters; simply kill enough of them and they worshipped you. If only men were so easy.
Neferata stretched out her sword, catching one of the larger beasts beneath its jaw with the flat of the blade. It gurgled something. She frowned. ‘Morath, I trust W’soran taught you whatever debased mewling passes for the language of Nagashizzar,’ she called out.
Morath hurried towards her, flanked by Neferata’s handmaidens. The blades of both vampires were dark with blood, but only a few ghouls had been opportunistic enough to attack them. Those creatures littered the slope below. Morath spoke in a halting, gurgling tongue that seemed to be less word than bark. The ghouls answered with barks of their own. Morath turned to Neferata, who was examining the blood dripping from her sword to the rocks. Several ghouls squatted low and snuffled at the spreading stain. ‘You’ve impressed them,’ Morath said.
‘They will serve us, or I will hunt them down. Tell them that,’ Neferata said.
‘That’s unnecessary. They know,’ Morath said. ‘You have a way with ghoul-kind. Even W’soran can only gain grudging service from them, and they flee at the first opportunity.’ He made a face. ‘They call him the Painfather.’
‘The minds of ghouls are as the minds of men. They seek strong leaders,’ Neferata said. The ghouls began to flow back into their holes in pairs and groups. A number stayed with them, as if to act as escort, a fact which Morath confirmed.
‘They will show us the secret ways into Nagashizzar. But it is dangerous in the deeps. There are creatures there that even the ghouls fear,’ Morath said as they followed the capering cannibals. ‘Rat-things, such as W’soran once spoke of.’
Neferata nodded. She had heard similar stories in Cathay and then again in Araby; of chittering red-eyed shadows and stealthy paws in the dark. She had thought it a fable. But now, looking up at the crude walls of Nagashizzar where it sprouted from the mountain’s peak, she could believe it. Where else would rats congregate, save in a warren such as this? This close to the fortress of the Great Necromancer, she coul
d feel the evil that infected rock and soil. It sank greedy claws into her mind, and she felt a strange invigoration, similar to that which she felt when entering Kadon’s pyramid in Mourkain.
The ghouls led them up the slope and into the warrens that honeycombed Cripple Peak. As they entered the foul-smelling hole, Neferata realised that Nagashizzar was very likely sitting atop a molehill. The trip through the cramped and crude ghoul-tunnels was tortuous and did nothing to improve her first impression. The creatures had clawed them from the very stuff of the mountains and they wound in seemingly no particular direction. Nonetheless, the ghouls led them unerringly on and they walked for hours, deeper into the darkness.
Here and there as they made their way through the tunnels they saw what remained of its structure and the delving of its former inhabitants. There had been more than ghouls in Nagashizzar once, and not all of the human tribes that Nagash had conquered had degenerated into the debased wretches guiding them. Some had simply died. There were heaps of bone – some gnawed and some not – clustered in corners and in nooks and alcoves, like offerings to some vast charnel god. Not Mordig, though, not here. No, the only god here was Nagash, and the ghouls prayed to him in the dark.
There were ghoul-women in the tunnels they travelled through, and squalling pups as well. They hissed and shied away as the males moved ahead, snarling and snapping, keeping the others away from their ‘guests’. There was no sign of what they had once been in their behaviour or appearance. ‘Is this our fate?’ Morath muttered.
‘What was that, necromancer?’ Neferata said.
‘These creatures were once men,’ Morath said, gesturing to a cowering carrion-eater. ‘Five or ten generations ago, they might have been the same as my own people. And now they are – what? They are nothing but cannibal beasts.’
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