Neferata

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘Magnificent,’ she said, swaying towards it. It drew her in, as if it were calling out to her in a whisper that only she could hear. As she drew close, she felt something shudder through her, and abruptly, her stomach twisted into a painful knot. Pain slithered through her limbs and she staggered. It felt as if a hundred hands were plucking at her flesh, seeking to strip it from her bones. She squalled and felt her body contort and then she staggered, unable to stand.

  ‘Neferata,’ Morath cried out, grabbing her as she slumped. He dragged her awkwardly back, away from the throne. ‘What–’

  ‘It’s him!’ she shrieked, shoving him aside and scrambling away from the throne. The feeling of revulsion lessened, and the pain waned. She spat out the black blood that had suddenly filled her mouth, and looked at her arms, where black veins pulsed angrily.

  ‘Nagash is dead,’ Morath said, looking at the throne.

  ‘So am I, necromancer,’ Neferata snapped. ‘He’s there. Some part of him is in those stones, clinging like a leech. It’s like a knife scoring my nerves.’

  ‘I see something,’ Morath said, stepping forwards. She resisted the urge to cringe as he drew close to the throne. ‘Look,’ he said, holding his corpse-light aloft to reveal dust-covered shapes which were spread out around the foot of the throne and spilled down the steps of the dais.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Tomes,’ Morath muttered, dropping to his knees before the throne. ‘How long have they lain here?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ She turned away from the throne and gritted her teeth. She could still feel the nauseating sensations. ‘Do what we brought you here to do, and be quick about it!’ As Morath set to clearing the dust and mould from the tomes, she strode towards the doors, wanting to get as far from the throne as possible.

  The sounds of battle were growing louder. She felt no fear for her handmaidens. She knew from experience that even the most inexperienced of their kind was far tougher to kill than anything yet living in this mountain. Her blood was strong, and it made others strong as well.

  It would make the world strong. She smiled softly at the thought, knowing even as she did so that the thought was not hers. Some small part of her rebelled then, angry. She would not do as Ushoran had done. There would be no aristocracy of the night, battening fat on the blood of mortals. That way lay stagnation and cessation. That way lay rebellion and danger.

  No, she would rule softly and gently, from behind curtains and viziers. She would stand behind all of the thrones of the world and their politics and wars would be her parlour games, enacted for her amusement down the long, unending corridor of years. It would be a great game, that.

  Bones clattered beneath her feet. She looked down. Piles of brown and yellow lay heaped in the corners, as if some great force had swept them aside. Rotted armour and rusting weapons lay amongst the piles, enough to outfit an army. Dust and cobwebs and the filth of ages provided a pathetic barrow for the dead. She glanced back at the throne.

  ‘You failed, old skull. But Neferata will not,’ she said, baring her fangs. She blinked. The veins of abn-i-khat had seemed to flicker in response to her words, and she felt a chill curl around her spine. Momentarily unnerved, she said, ‘Morath, have you found anything useful in that rubbish?’

  ‘I… don’t know,’ he said. He sat on the dais steps, a crumbling book in his hands. The glow from the hand had dimmed and it lay near his foot, discarded. He thumbed through the crumbling pages cautiously. ‘They’ve just sat here for centuries…’ he said, as if offended by the thought. ‘Why wouldn’t the scavengers have taken them?’

  ‘Maybe they tried,’ Neferata said, gesturing to the crumbling bodies. ‘Have you found what we need, or not?’ Before he could reply, the sound of swift footsteps on the stone echoed through the chamber. ‘Prepare yourself, necromancer,’ she said, loosening her sword in its sheath. She could smell the rat-musk now and she thought that she caught a glimpse of red eyes in the darkness of one of the holes which marred the wall.

  ‘There are so many of them – so much knowledge,’ Morath almost moaned, flicking through crumbling pages, his eyes widened as if to drink in the faded scrawling that covered each page. ‘What we could do with all of this–’

  Neferata glanced at him. ‘I care nothing for Nagash’s scribbling, Morath. Find the right damn one before it’s too late–’

  With a squealing cry, more than a dozen rat-things burst from one of the close tunnels, carrying short stabbing spears and rough wooden shields. They charged towards Neferata and she moved to meet them. Morath shot to his feet and spat harsh, croaking syllables, and a curling spike of dark, blistering energy carved a swathe of destruction through the horde. Neferata was hot on its heels and her sword smashed down through a shield and into the furry body cowering beneath it.

  In moments the surviving rats were scampering back the way they had come. Neferata spun as Rasha and Layla entered the throne room through the doors, covered in blood, some of it their own. ‘They’re regrouping,’ Rasha said. ‘And more are coming besides. Morath was right – we’ve walked into a nest of the foul beasts.’

  ‘More than a nest,’ Morath said, looking longingly at the books and scrolls scattered across the dais. ‘If W’soran was telling the truth, there’s a damn city down there and enough troops to keep us busy until the world ends.’ He snatched one of the books up and flipped through it. ‘We could kill thousands and they’d still keep coming.’ He clutched the crumbling book to his chest.

  ‘Then it is best if we take our leave,’ Neferata said. ‘Is that what we came for?’ She gestured to the book in his hands with her sword.

  He hesitated. His eyes darted to the other tomes scattered about. ‘I-I think so.’ It was plain that he wanted to claim otherwise. Morath had a hunger for knowledge that rivalled the dwarfs’ love of gold.

  ‘Do you think, or do you know?’ Neferata snarled, taking a step towards him. ‘I have no time for games, Morath. There’s an army breathing down our neck and we won’t have a second chance at this!’

  Morath hugged the book more tightly, but he met her gaze. His posture stiffened. ‘This is the one,’ he said more harshly.

  ‘We won’t make it ten yards past those doors, mistress,’ Rasha said bluntly. ‘I can hear them out there. They’re all around us. We were under siege the moment we left the ghoul warrens!’

  Neferata hissed in exasperation. So close and yet to be deterred by vermin was as complete an insult as she could conceive. Had this been Ushoran’s hope all along? That she would fall here and her bones join those–

  ‘Ha!’ Neferata pointed to the bones that lined the hall. ‘Here. Here is where we shall find our reinforcements.’

  ‘It will take all of the strength I have left,’ Morath said, not quite protesting. He was speaking the truth, she knew. He was paler than normal and looked shrunken, somehow. He cradled the mouldering tome to his chest as if it were a child.

  ‘Do it,’ Neferata demanded. ‘Do it or be damned, Morath. If you want my protection, then make yourself worthy of it.’

  Morath nodded, grim-faced. Neferata felt something like a caress across her heart, and then Morath raised his hands and black energies, painful to look upon, curled from his fingers. A strange smell filled the air, which would have choked the living.

  To Neferata, however, it smelled like the sweetest of wines. The winds of darkness clamoured to be used, pressing themselves upon the world through Morath’s ritualistic gestures. Neferata gulped down a greedy breath, drinking in the stray magics with instinctive abandon. They invigorated her more than even the headiest swallow of blood. Was this what W’soran felt as he employed his necromantic magics? She glanced to the side. It was obvious that the others were feeling it as well. Even as the living felt repulsed by the magic of the grave, the dead were seemingly drawn to it.

  Morath spoke and his voice, while not deep, burne
d and echoed amongst the stones of the hall. Brown bones which had soaked in the grime of centuries burst upwards on tattered feet and clawed for the sky. Long-dead things lurched into the light of his spell, shedding dirt and immobility like water. Moans that were more a memory of sound than sound itself settled heavily on the air.

  Neferata stepped forwards. Ancient weapons rattled as the dead raised them in salute. A hundred skulls, covered in veils of filth, returned her gaze with empty ones of their own. The floor and walls shook and shuddered as a cloud of cold, wet air and mist seeped from the pores of the stones. The mist swept about the feet of the dead and rose up before them like a wave, disgorging the emaciated shapes of warriors in ancient bronze armour, whose eyes glowed with a sinister light.

  Morath stepped past them, face drawn and haggard. ‘The Yaghur served Nagash for centuries. As they will now serve you, Lady Neferata,’ he said. He slumped on the dais, his limbs twitching as if they ached. ‘I’ve wrenched the dead from the guts of this place. Hopefully it will be enough.’

  ‘It tires you,’ Neferata said, looking at him.

  ‘Of course it tires me,’ Morath said. ‘I am wrenching the dead out of their graves. It is like a game of tug-of-war, between them and me. If I set a foot wrong or make the wrong gesture, I’ll join them in the darkness.’

  ‘W’soran seems to have none of your difficulties,’ Neferata said. She could hear the skittering of the ratkin in their holes. They were regrouping and regaining their courage in the sanctuary the darkness provided. She wondered at their hesitation. Were they that cowardly, or was it perhaps that they felt the raw essence of evil that lingered here?

  ‘Your kind,’ Morath spat the word, ‘have no difficulties channelling the magic required to pull the dead from their sleep. Or so W’soran says, at any rate.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’ Neferata said, raising her sword. She glanced at Rasha, who nodded. Shapes moved in the darkness outside the doors to the throne room.

  ‘Would you? He lies as a matter of course,’ Morath said, clutching the tome he held more tightly. ‘He doesn’t care for Mourkain… only for his damned experiments. If he didn’t have the captives from battles and raids he’d take my folk and make monsters of them!’ His voice rose in pitch.

  Neferata watched him reassert control of himself. ‘Teach me,’ she said. ‘Teach us.’

  ‘What?’ Morath said.

  Neferata sank down to her knees before him. ‘Teach us, Morath. W’soran will not do it, the jealous old creature. But you can. Teach us your magics, these magics you say that we can do so well, and we will use them in defence of Mourkain and the Strigoi. We will take on the burden of death, even as we are meant to do,’ she said, letting her will add weight to her words. His mind, normally silver-sharp and bright, was dull now, exhausted and weak. It crumbled beneath her subtle assault, her words and pleas mingling with his until Morath of Mourkain could no longer tell his own thoughts from what she had put into his head.

  ‘I... yes,’ he said hesitantly, his face crumbling. ‘But first we must escape this trap.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Neferata said, rising to her feet. She looked at Layla and Rasha, both of whom still looked exhausted and weak, though that was changing as they bathed in the raw death-stuff dripping from the floating nightmare forms which surrounded them. ‘Sisters, will you follow me?’

  ‘Always, my lady,’ Rasha said hoarsely. Layla nodded, her eyes blazing with hunger. Neferata looked to Morath, but he lay on the dais, barely breathing. The necromancer would be of no further help. The dead looked to her silently, their wills bound to hers by Morath’s magic.

  ‘Then it is time to remind these creatures that they rule here only at our sufferance,’ Neferata said, raising her sword as small, vicious shapes scuttled into the throne room in a verminous tide. They came in a chattering wave, much as they had before, albeit in greater numbers. The front rank of the creatures halted as they caught sight of the newly risen dead and those behind stumbled into them. Neferata seized the opportunity and gestured sharply. ‘Take them,’ she snarled.

  Before the vermin could react, Rasha and Layla leapt to the attack, and the dead moved with them in an eerie, creaking harmony. Rasha stretched out an arm and impaled a quivering rat-thing on her blade. With a growl she yanked it up and let the writhing, squealing form slide down her weapon’s length. Layla chopped heads and tails with gleeful abandon, covering herself in the foul blood of the creatures like a child playing in mud. The dead men hewed and hacked at their scurrying enemies with something that might have been personal animosity. Though the creatures they had once fought were long dead and gone, the current generation of ratkin knew just who – and what – it was that they faced and long-buried fear burst through their veneer of menace, puncturing their courage and sending many fleeing into side passages and tunnels, their shrieks and cries adding to the cacophony of the conflict.

  Neferata watched the slaughter unfold in satisfaction. The ratkin broke within moments, their organised ranks falling into a disorderly rout. They fled in all directions, and those who didn’t do so fast enough were trampled underfoot. Neferata knew that it was only surprise that had allowed her tiny force to accomplish such a defeat. She also knew that it wouldn’t last long. The rats had lurked in the walls of Nagashizzar for too long; they wouldn’t give up that easily. It was time they took their leave.

  She sheathed her blade and stooped, scooping up Morath as easily as a mother might lift a child. Her flesh quivered as she stepped back from the throne; again she saw the shadowy shape there, its skull wreathed in smoke and flame, and her heart, long since dead and still, shuddered in its cage of bone. Then the moment passed and the throne was empty.

  She spun and moved swiftly towards the doors, followed by her handmaidens. The spectral warriors charged ahead in silence, clearing the path. For the first time in centuries, the dead marched in Nagashizzar, and they brought misery with them to those who had thought themselves secure in their mastery. As they made their way out of Nagashizzar, the whispers began again, stronger, as if the touch of dark magic had given them a strength they had previously been lacking.

  ‘I am coming,’ Neferata hissed in reply. And somewhere, in the darkness, something cried out in triumph.

  THIRTEEN

  The City of Sartosa

  (–1146 Imperial Reckoning)

  The spear licked out, its blade surmounted by a halo of dust and smoke. Neferata barely brought her sword up in time, driving the spear-point into the mast behind her. It hammered home, cracking wood. The crack widened as the spear was jerked free by its wielder.

  The druchii hissed and lunged again, his lean body driving the spear towards her belly with inhuman speed. Neferata caught the haft, just below the blade, and guided it around her even as her sword came up and pierced the druchii’s side. The elf bucked in agony and Neferata ripped her sword free, letting her opponent fall.

  Neferata stepped over the body and looked out over the deck. The port of Sartosa was aflame as the druchii raiders ravaged the city, looking for loot and slaves. More of the pale, black-eyed elves charged across the deck towards her. They had butchered the remaining crew easily, but were finding Neferata and her handmaidens to be an altogether tougher breed of opponent. She had faced the creatures before, in the Shark Straits. They raided the coasts of Araby with depressing regularity and had taken a number of vessels that she considered hers. She considered this to be a form of belated justice.

  A white-haired elf woman ran towards Neferata, shrieking in what might have been delight. Curved blades connected with Neferata’s sword, the force of the blow nearly knocking her from her feet. The elf spat something in her own liquid tongue and Neferata responded by shoving aside her opponent’s swords and lunging, snake-swift, to clamp her jaws on the elf’s throat. She was careful not to gulp down the blood that burst into her mouth, having seen the effects it had had on one of h
er handmaidens who hadn’t been so cautious. The vampire had collapsed as if drugged, and had yet to awaken.

  Neferata tossed her head, ripping the elf’s throat out. The elf slumped, clutching at the spurting hole in her jugular. Neferata spat out what was in her mouth and shoved the dying elf to the side. The others, clad in scaly cloaks and dark armour, hesitated. Neferata smiled, blood staining her face. ‘Kill them for me, my sweets,’ she spat.

  The ghouls burst out of the open hold behind the elves, their slimy paws tangling in the cloaks and their talons hooking the ornate armour. The druchii turned on this new threat with remarkable aplomb, but surprise and numbers were on the ghouls’ side. The struggling elves were either torn apart there or they were pulled into the dank hold, to be devoured alive if she judged their screams correctly. The ghouls were hungry, having had little to eat beyond rats or the cast-off members of the crew once Neferata and her followers had finished with them.

  The screams of the druchii ringing in her ears, she found her gaze sliding east, where distant mountains climbed into the clouds. In the tongue of the Sartosans, they were the ‘Mountains-at-World’s-End’. Something seemed to flash between those distant peaks and she felt a jolt. It had merely been a reflection from the fire off the water, she thought.

  Yes, just a reflection.

  Nonetheless, she continued to stare and before her astonished eyes, a vast black cloud seemed to rise up from the mountains, as if a flock of birds had suddenly taken flight. For a moment, the cloud seemed to take the form of a man – no, not a man, something worse. And then it was gone and it was once again just a reflection and Neferata turned back to the slaughter to drown her misgivings in blood…