The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  Even astride his powerful horse, Arkhan found himself looking his towering opponents nearly eye-to-eye. Even as they reeled from the force of the cavalry charge, they struck at the vizier from every side. A flashing spear point drove into his left side, just beneath the ribs, and another punched through his right thigh and dug into his horse’s ribs. Hissing like a viper, Arkhan decapitated a man to his right and took a hand off a spearman to his left. His sword flashed and spun, scattering ribbons of steaming blood in a wide arc as he toppled one foe after another. The necromantic power burning in his veins lent him equal strength and greater speed than his enemies, and his foes toppled like wheat before the vizier’s bloodstained blade.

  The enemy recoiled from Arkhan’s terrible might, shouting the names of their gods or crying out in dismay. A flung spear struck the vizier full in the chest, piercing his lung. He tore it free with his left hand and hurled it back with a bloody sneer, and then stood high in the saddle and began to chant in a harsh, sibilant hiss. The air around Arkhan crackled with invisible power as he spoke the necromantic spell, and the men he’d slain began to stir. Streaming blood from their terrible wounds, the dead warriors climbed numbly to their feet amid the horrified cries of their kinsmen.

  The shock of the terrible charge and the fate of their fallen brothers were too much for the enemy to endure. The spearmen broke, piling back upon the company next to them and disrupting the formation in their haste to escape. Arkhan’s horsemen rode the spearmen down as they tried to flee, spurring their horses forward into the press and hacking away with their bloodstained swords. The panic of the fleeing men was contagious, affecting every warrior they came into contact with. The advancing cavalry had barely reached the second enemy company when it, too, wavered and broke in the face of the onslaught. They, in turn, fell back against the third company in line, their numbers so great that even stalwart warriors were swept away in the press.

  Exultant, the horsemen continued their advance, sowing terror and panic among their foes. Several squadrons had already worked their way around the growing mob of fleeing troops and had encountered a screen of light cavalry. The enemy riders fired a volley of arrows point-blank into the flanks of the Khemri horsemen, toppling more than a score of men from their saddles or sending their mounts thrashing to the ground. One of Arkhan’s squadrons wheeled to face the light cavalry and made to charge them, but the horsemen of Ka-Sabar broke off at once, galloping south for the safety of the oasis.

  The third company was struggling to hold together against the tide of their retreating comrades. The formation had already fragmented into large bands of isolated warriors, but these men were made of sterner stuff than their fellows, and struggled to stand their ground against all odds. Horsemen circled them like wolves, darting in and striking a few swift blows before dashing away again, but the longer reach of the spear and the strength of the men of Ka-Sabar worked to their advantage. Dead men and horses were piling up around the grim spearmen, slowing down the weight of Arkhan’s charge and allowing the retreating warriors the opportunity to escape. Cursing hatefully, the vizier weighed his options. The cavalry’s charge had all but spent its strength. Should he withdraw, regroup, and charge again, or summon his fellow immortals and grind these stubborn holdouts into the dust?

  Arkhan hesitated, and in those few moments his opportunity was lost. With the thunder of bronze-rimmed wheels and the deadly hum of bowstrings, a dark mass of armoured chariots charged out of the haze from behind the centre of the retreating enemy army, rushing to the rescue of the wavering left flank.

  Arrows buzzed through the milling crowd of horsemen, wreaking deadly havoc among their ranks, and then the scythe-armed chariots plunged into their midst. The whirling blades mounted on the chariot axles, each as long as the blade of a sword, tore through the legs of the Khemri horses, mortally wounding dozens and filling the air with their chilling screams. Great bronze scimitars flashed in the hands of the warriors riding in the backs of these heavy war machines, cutting down horsemen and walking corpses alike.

  The force of the enemy charge shocked Arkhan’s horsemen. The bronze-sheathed chariots of Ka-Sabar were unlike the lighter, swifter machines found in the armies of other Nehekharan cities, and in the hands of a competent commander their impact was devastating. A cheer went up from the Bronze Host at their sudden appearance, and the wavering spear companies appeared to regain a measure of their lost courage. Arkhan knew that he had to act quickly before the chariots caused so much damage that he would have to withdraw back to the ridge. The thought of facing his master and admitting his defeat was too terrible to contemplate.

  Arkhan uttered a savage curse and spurred his wounded horse forward, galloping headlong into the midst of the enemy chariots. Arrows buzzed angrily around him. One buried itself in his shoulder, but he scarcely felt the blow. He was searching among the thundering war machines, seeking the champion who led them. If he could find that man and slay him it would surely dismay the rest.

  He saw the man almost at once: a lean, dark-skinned giant at the forefront of the enemy attack, wielding a two-handed khopesh as though it were no more than a hollow reed. The champion was already splashed with gore, and a dozen horses and their riders lay smashed and bloodied in his wake.

  Arkhan knew that this was Suseb the Lion. It could be no other. Ka-Sabar’s Master of Horse was accounted as one of the greatest living warriors in all Nehekhara.

  The vizier smiled coldly. He had been murdering men like Suseb for a hundred years before the Lion was even born.

  Across the battlefield, the mighty champion caught sight of the vizier’s dark form. The Lion’s eyes widened at the sight of the pale immortal.

  Arkhan raised his bloody scimitar in challenge and put his spurs to his horse’s flanks.

  FOUR

  The Fickle Tide

  The Oasis of Zedri, in the 62nd year of Qu’aph the Cunning

  (-1750 Imperial Reckoning)

  Akhmen-hotep heard the thunder of hooves to the west and gritted his teeth in helpless rage. Pakh-amn’s light cavalry was retreating from the Usurper’s sudden attack. The shouts and screams from the far end of the battleline had merged into a formless, toneless roar of pure noise. It was not the dull metal clatter of battle, but the sound of pure butchery. If the left flank had not already collapsed, it was teetering on the brink.

  Men were pouring past the priest king’s chariot in an apparently endless flood, their faces slack with terror and exhaustion. Behind them came an inexorable tide of walking death, a new army of undead flesh, animated by a soulless, evil will.

  He had shouted himself hoarse, trying to rally his men and return them to the fight. At first, he enjoyed some success, collecting stragglers here and there and ordering them back into threadbare companies, but as soon as the shambling corpses appeared, they lost their nerve once more.

  Unless something could be done to hold the undead creatures at bay, the Bronze Host would be utterly destroyed, and if the fearsome warriors of Ka-Sabar were no match for Nagash the Usurper, Nehekhara was surely doomed.

  There had been no sign of the priests in the long retreat across the plain. Akhmen-hotep resigned himself to the fact that young Dhekeru had stood no chance against the horrors lurking in the darkness. All that remained was to reach the oasis and make his stand, hoping that the foul stain of darkness would not spread further.

  Then, a pearlescent glow flared to life, just a few yards ahead of the retreating chariot. The driver called out in alarm, but the priest king laid a reassuring hand on the frightened man’s shoulder. He could hear the sound of voices mingled in a steady, determined chant.

  “The priests!” he cried, his heart lifting. His message had won through after all!

  Within moments, Akhmen-hotep and his Ushabti led their chariots past a line of Neru’s white-robed priests, all standing fearlessly in the path of the oncoming creatures and chanting the Invocation of the Vigilant Sentinel. The pearly light of the moon goddess radiated
from their skin, pushing back the darkness and giving the frightened warriors a place of refuge. Beyond the line of stalwart priests, Akhmen-hotep spied their High Priestess, Khalifra, offering prayers and sacrifice to her goddess. Farther off, he saw Memnet and the priests of Ptra, gathered in grim debate with Sukhet and the priests of Phakth.

  A booming, bull-like voice rose above the distant roar of battle and the confused shouts of the retreating warriors. Hashepra, the iron-thewed high priest of Geheb, was bellowing to the soldiers of the Bronze Host.

  “Darkness comes and darkness goes, but the great earth is not moved,” he called. “Stand fast, like the mountains, and Geheb will bless you with the strength to defeat your enemies!” The power of Hashepra’s voice and his stern, intimidating presence had the desired effect on the men, restoring their courage and stopping their headlong flight. Slowly, but surely, discipline was being restored, but would it be in time?

  Strange, unearthly moans rose from the gloom as the first of the undead reached the barrier of moonlight cast by the priests of Neru. The creatures hesitated, raising their bloody limbs to shield their faces from the glow. They hissed and cried, but for the moment they could advance no further. Akhmen-hotep offered a prayer of thanks to the Heavenly Consort, and then directed his driver to take him to Memnet.

  The priests of sun and sky put aside their heated words at the priest king’s approach, but Akhmen-hotep could see the strain etched deeply on their faces. He dismounted from his chariot before it had fully stopped and rushed up to the grim-faced men.

  “Thank all the gods that you got my message,” he began. Memnet frowned.

  “Message? There was no message.”

  “When we saw the darkness unleashed, we knew that we would be called upon,” Sukhet interjected, “though none of us could have expected the blasphemous sorceries the Usurper now possesses.”

  “I see,” Akhmen-hotep said quietly. “What about this foul darkness? Can you not disperse it?”

  “It is all we can do to keep it from spreading further,” Sukhet snapped, giving the king a sour look. “It is no mere cloud of dust or ash, but a living thing, perhaps a swarm of beetles or locusts, marshalled by diabolical intent. It rides upon the wind, and cannot be easily swept aside.”

  “Then what of the Great Father’s light?” Akhmen-hotep asked the Grand Hierophant. “Can you not invoke Ptra to burn this devilry from the sky?”

  “Do you not think I have tried, brother?” Memnet said bleakly. The Grand Hierophant’s face was pale, and his eyes were wide with fear. “I have made entreaties. I have made sacrifices. I fed my body servants to the flames, but Ptra does not heed me!”

  Akhmen-hotep shook his head, and said, “You’re not making sense. The covenant—”

  “What the Grand Hierophant means is that we are being interfered with,” Sukhet said darkly. “I do not know how.” He cast a worried look in the direction of the distant ridge. “There is sorcery at work unlike anything I have ever known. It is the foulest sort of magic, the work of the devils!”

  “Then you must strike at it with all the power you have available!” Akhmen-hotep said. “Call upon the lightning! Sear the sky with Ptra’s fire! Strike at the Usurper with all the wrath of the gods!”

  “You don’t know what you are asking,” Sukhet answered, genuinely shaken by the priest king’s demand. “The price of such power—”

  “Pay it!” the king commanded. “No cost is too great to rid the Blessed Land of such a monster! He has bled our cities white, terrorised our people and emptied our treasuries, and if we are defeated here, do you imagine that Nagash will be content with a ransom of gold, or ingots of bronze? Have you forgotten what he did to Zandri, back in the days of our fathers? That will pale in comparison to the vengeance he will wreak upon us for our defiance.”

  “But the omens,” Memnet moaned. “I tried to warn you. While the sunlight shone, we had our way, but now—”

  Akhmen-hotep took a menacing step towards his older brother.

  “Then make it shine again,” he snarled.

  The Grand Hierophant started to protest, but suddenly a faint, skirling sound rose wild and clear above the tumult, echoing from the dunes to the west. Heads turned, searching for the source of the sound. Sukhet, whose ears were keener by the grace of his god, cocked his head attentively.

  “Horns,” he said, “but made of bone, not bronze.”

  “Another trick of the Usurper?” Memnet asked.

  “No, not this time,” Akhmen-hotep said. His face creased in a triumphant smile. “The princes of Bhagar have arrived at last!”

  Three-quarters of a mile distant, hidden from sight by the Usurper’s unnatural shadow, four thousand robed horsemen rode out of the blinding desert sands, hastening to the fight. The merchant princes of Bhagar had sent every fighting man they could spare to aid their allies in the struggle against Nagash, and there were no better horsemen in all the Blessed Land. In ancient times, they had been bandits, preying upon Nehekharan caravans and slipping like ghosts back into the dunes, but in the time of Settra they had been tamed and welcomed into the Empire. Since then, they had prospered as traders, but they had never forgotten their warlike ways.

  The horsemen of Bhagar knew the Great Desert as a man knows his first wife. They were privy to its changing ways and its fierce temper, its hidden gifts and shadowy secrets, and yet, as they rode to the aid of Ka-Sabar, they were bedevilled again and again by fierce sandstorms and false trails that cost them precious days amid the burning sands. When their outriders caught sight of the spreading darkness staining the horizon, they had feared the worst, and pushed their fiery desert steeds to the utmost.

  Led by the bold Shahid ben Alcazzar, first among equals in Bhagar and called the Red Fox by his kin, the desert horsemen plunged fearlessly into the unnatural darkness hanging over the great plain, and found themselves behind a swirling mass of cavalrymen threatening the Bronze Host’s left flank. Calling upon the spirits of their ancestors, they winded their bone war horns and raced into battle. The lead riders drew short, barbed javelins from quivers hanging by their knees and let fly into the packed mass of heavy horsemen, while those further behind unlimbered powerful composite horse bows and thick, red-fletched arrows. The powerful missiles could punch through a wooden shield at forty paces, and the riders knew how to use them to deadly effect.

  The sudden attack sowed death and confusion among the enemy ranks, and the squadrons of heavy horsemen scattered before the onslaught. Swift as a pack of wolves, the desert raiders wheeled about and dashed back the way they’d come, leaving a hundred dead cavalrymen littering the bloody ground. Then, after a hundred yards they stopped, turned about, and came at the enemy once more, weaving effortlessly among the heavier warhorses and toppling men from their saddles. Furious, the Khemri horsemen tried to give chase, and the desert raiders began, slowly but surely, to draw them off to the west, away from the embattled spear companies.

  Arkhan heard the wailing horns of the desert riders just as he began his charge, and realised the peril his warriors were in. They were caught between two enemy forces, and if the chariots could regroup and charge his men once more, they could very well break under the pressure. Without warning, the tide of battle threatened to turn against them.

  Hissing like an adder, the vizier bore down on Suseb the Lion. The champion of the Bronze Host likewise ordered his chariot forward, raising his mighty khopesh. The archer beside him raised his bow, but Suseb stopped him with a forbidding glare. This would be a battle between heroes, or so the Lion thought.

  As the distance between them dwindled, Arkhan began to chant. He felt the dark power bubbling in his veins, and at the last moment he stretched out his left hand and unleashed a storm of crackling ebon bolts at the occupants of the chariot. Screams and shouts of fury answered the vizier as he veered away from the onrushing chariot and its scything blades.

  After a dozen yards, he swung about and saw that the champion’s armoured chariot had
come to a halt. Its driver lay at Suseb’s feet, his body a smoking husk, and the Lion was struggling to untangle the chariot’s reins from the corpse’s shrivelled hands. The champion’s archer, meanwhile, leapt from the back of the chariot and stood between Arkhan and his foe. The vizier laughed at the sight and spurred his mount forward.

  The bowman was a man of courage. His face was a mask of rage, but he moved with calm efficiency, drawing a long reed arrow to his cheek and letting fly at the onrushing immortal. Arkhan jerked the reins at the last minute, trying to dodge aside, and the arrow struck him in the left arm instead of burying itself in his heart.

  Before the archer could draw another arrow, Arkhan was upon him. His scimitar hissed through the air, and the bowman’s headless body fell forward into the dust.

  The archer’s death had given the Lion the time he needed, however, and with an angry cry he lashed the reins and the chariot lurched into motion once more. Suseb handled the huge machine masterfully, turning it in a tight circle, but not before Arkhan dashed past. Once again, his scimitar whirred in a decapitating arc, but the blade shivered in his hand as though he’d struck solid teak. The Lion, it appeared, ranked high in the earth god’s favour.

  Despite the speed of Arkhan’s charge he still felt the wind of Suseb’s blade slicing through the air a fraction of an inch behind him. He continued on past the champion for less than ten feet before hauling furiously on the reins. His steed tossed its head angrily and pawed at the earth as the vizier hauled it back around for another pass.

  Suseb was still struggling to control the chariot with one hand while looking over his shoulder at Arkhan. He was bringing the war machine about, but too slowly. Grinning like a devil, Arkhan bore down on the Lion’s back, sword poised above his head. Once again he began to chant. Wisps of foul, black vapour began to curl from the edge of his blade.