by Mike Lee
Nearly a dozen alabaster-skinned figures waited hungrily outside their master’s tent. They glared at Arkhan with barely concealed hatred as he brushed past his brethren and entered the master’s tent unannounced.
Nagash waited within, surrounded by his retinue of ghosts and attended upon by his queen and his slaves. Three immortals knelt at their master’s feet, gulping noisily from golden goblets held in their trembling hands.
Arkhan smelled the heady perfume of the life-giving elixir and fell to his knees. He crawled through the dust to Nagash’s feet, the ghosts circling him, touching his skin with fingers of ice and keening in his ears.
“I bring news of your victory, master,” he said hoarsely.
“Speak, then,” Nagash said coldly.
Arkhan ran his tongue over his cold lips. The thirst was terrible. Every vein in his body was shrivelled and aching. With an effort, he continued, “The Bronze Host is in flight, and Bhagar’s horsemen have been forced to quit the field.”
“Your cavalry pursues them even now,” Nagash said.
“Even so, master, even so,” the vizier replied, raising his eyes to the king. The queen stood to Nagash’s right and a little behind the necromancer. Arkhan avoided her unblinking, agonised stare. “We should recall our horsemen at once, before they become too spent,” he said. “The Bronze Host is in disarray, fleeing for their lives down the trade road to Ka-Sabar. At least half their number lies dead on the plain below. If we pursue them, we might destroy them utterly—”
The king shook his head.
“There will be no pursuit,” Nagash declared. “The army must return to Khemri at once. The Kings of Rasetra and Lybaras have risen against us as well, and even now their armies are marching through the Valley of Kings.”
Arkhan was taken aback by the news. For a moment, even his dreadful thirst was forgotten.
“What of our allies at Quatar?” he asked.
“I have sent a message to Priest King Nemuhareb,” Nagash replied. “He is marching to block the western end of the valley, and is certain that he can turn back the rebels.”
The vizier studied his master’s face. “You are not convinced,” he said.
“We must confront this rebellion from a position of strength,” the necromancer replied. “This battle today was but the first of many. I foresee a long, bitter war to come. We must gather our allies and prepare for the storm.” A hungry glint shone in Nagash’s dark eyes. “We will deal with Ka-Sabar later. Before we are done, all Nehekhara will lie beneath our heel, and Settra’s great empire will be restored!”
“From your lips to the gods’ ears,” Arkhan might once have said. Now, the vizier only smiled, and asked, “What would you have me do, master?”
“For now, drink. Then go and summon your errant horsemen. We depart for Khemri at dusk,” Nagash said, stretching forth his hand.
Ghazid, the king’s blue-eyed slave, shuffled from the darkness at the far side of the tent with a golden goblet in his wrinkled hands. The vessel brimmed with a thick, crimson liquid. Arkhan’s hands clenched spastically as it drew near.
The vizier tore the goblet from the mad slave’s hands and gulped greedily at its contents, all thoughts of war and conquest forgotten.
FIVE
A Storm out of the East
The Valley of Kings, in the 62nd year of Qu’aph the Cunning
(-1750 Imperial Reckoning)
Something was moving beyond the Gates of the Dawn.
It was almost noon. Rakh-amn-hotep, the first of his name, Priest King of Rasetra, rubbed a calloused hand over his shaven scalp and squinted in the fierce sunlight. The air shimmered in the confines of the Valley of Kings, flashing brightly against the drifting clouds of chalky dust stirred up by the movement of the allied army. The fine, glittering dust had become their worst enemy during the long, punishing march down the winding valley. It clung to the skin, clogged throats and eyes, and sawed at the axles of the chariots. From where the king stood, surrounded by his Ushabti atop a low hill just off the wide temple road, he could see great clouds of dust shrouding the narrow pass at the western end of the valley, concealing whatever dangers might be arrayed against them.
Something was out there. That much was certain. But what?
Rakh-amn-hotep hooked his blunt thumbs into the arm holes of his heavy scale shirt and tried to shift it into a more comfortable position. It had been a long time since he’d marched through the sands of central Nehekhara, and he could stand the heat, but his skin was afire from the thick layer of dust chafing beneath the weight of his armour. The priest king was a short, very stout man, with a wide barrel chest and a blunt, pugnacious face. The point of a lizardman’s spear had left a permanent dimple in his left cheek, creating the illusion of a smile. He was a savage, cunning man, cruel to his enemies and relentless when his anger was aroused, and the Priest King of Rasetra was frequently angry about something. His small city, situated near the edge of the steaming southern jungles, was constantly under threat from tribes of savage lizardmen. Not a year went by when the Rasetrans weren’t fending off raiding parties, or leading punitive expeditions into the wilds to burn villages and take hostages from the larger tribes.
Years of fighting against the tribesmen had left their mark on the priest king and his warriors. They wore longer, heavier kilts of thick cotton that stretched below their knees, overlaid with cured leather taken from the massive thunder lizards that crashed their way through the thick jungle growth. Their torsos were covered in thick shirts of scaly lizard hide, with overlapping, bony plates to turn aside tooth or claw. The strange armour lent Rasetrans a savage, exotic appearance, which contrasted dramatically with the simple, conventional attire of their allies.
The city of Lybaras, on the other hand, was not known for its prowess in war. Their patron was Tahoth, the god of knowledge and learning, and their wealth, such as it was, stemmed from their great academies and craftsmen rather than from fierce raids or conquest. Their nobles had little use for jewels or fine clothes, but rather, invested their fortunes in scrolls and strange tools, vessels of rare glass and arcane devices of bronze and wood.
From where the King of Rasetra stood, it was difficult to tell a Lybaran noble from a slave. Both favoured a simple, dun-coloured kilt and functional leather sandals, with a dark brown cape that hung below the waist. The only difference, Rakh-amn-hotep noted with a scowl, was the amount of glass baubles and metal trinkets the nobles carried wherever they went. Even their Ushabti were strange, their bodies bearing none of the physical blessings of the other gods, and their weapons a motley assortment of sticks, knives and coils of tightly braided rope. Only their eyes betrayed their divine nature. They were a piercing, almost luminous grey, as hard and incisive as sharpened stone. Nothing seemed to escape their notice, much less catch them unprepared.
Hekhmenukep, Priest King of Lybaras, stood amid a bustling throng of chattering viziers and nervous scribes just a few yards to Rakh-amn-hotep’s right. The king was peering intently through a long, wooden tube rimmed with polished brass, balanced on the bare shoulder of a waiting slave. Hekhmenukep was tall and lean to the point of being skeletal. His kilt hung listlessly down to the top of his bony knees, and the fall of his cape only accentuated the slope of his narrow shoulders. A fine gold chain lay around the king’s long neck, from which hung a strange assortment of glass discs edged in copper, silver and brass wire. He looked more like a mason than the ruler of a mighty city, Rakh-amn-hotep mused.
“Well?” the King of Rasetra demanded. “Do you see anything or not?”
The viziers surrounding Hekhmenukep shifted uneasily at Rakh-amn-hotep’s peremptory tone, but the king himself appeared unfazed.
“The sunlight turns the dust into a swirling curtain,” he said, squinting into his strange contraption. “There are flashes of light and the occasional shadow, but it’s difficult to discern what any of it means.” The priest king straightened. “Perhaps you would care to try?” he offered, gesturing at
the tube.
Rakh-amn-hotep scowled at the strange object.
“I know little about Tahoth and his ways,” he granted. “I doubt he would bless me with any special sight.” The comment drew a laugh from Hekhmenukep.
“There is no need for special prayers in this case,” he said. “Merely look into the tube. The glass will aid the working of your eye.”
Rakh-amn-hotep was dubious, but the need for information spurred him to try. On the level ground west of the hill, the armies of Rasetra and Lybaras were hastily turning off the road and forming their battleline to the shrill wailing of trumpets. Somewhere up ahead, in that swirling mass of dust at the end of the valley, was the army’s advance guard of light horsemen. Half an hour ago, a rider from the advance guard had come galloping down the road with a message from his commander: enemy troops had been sighted at the Gates of the Dawn. There had been no word since. Had the light horsemen encountered a small detachment of troops and driven them off, or were they fighting for their lives against the entire army of Quatar?
He’d known from the beginning that the march down the valley would be a race against time. The Valley of Kings was an ominous place, fraught with old magics and restless spirits that haunted the tombs of the ancient Nehekharans. Nothing grew there, and the nearest water was almost a hundred leagues away. The high, sheer walls of the valley forced travellers to traverse it from one end to the other. The eastern end, known as the Gates of the Dusk, was guarded by the city of Mahrak and its army of warrior priests. The western end, known as the Gates of the Dawn, was guarded by the Tomb Guard of Quatar. Rakh-amn-hotep knew that if their campaign were to have any chance of success, they would have to reach the Gates of the Dawn before Quatar got word of their approach and moved to block the mouth of the valley. If the Tomb Guard controlled the Gates of the Dawn, the allied army would either have to risk a brutal, bloody assault or else turn around and retreat back the way they’d come. Since leaving Mahrak, the allied army had moved with surprising speed down the winding valley, thanks largely to the Lybarans’ strange, floating wagons. Suspended high above the valley floor by the hot desert wind, the wagons were able to carry the army’s supplies and keep pace with the troops instead of being slowed to a crawl by unruly teams of camels or oxen. The army had covered almost a hundred leagues in just the first five days, and Rakh-amn-hotep had dared to believe that his gamble would succeed.
How the gods laughed when men dared to hope, the priest king mused sourly. He strode over to Hekhmenukep’s odd invention and reluctantly peered into the end of the wooden tube.
At first, all he could see was a blurry circle of white. Frowning, he started to pull away from the tube, and suddenly the image cleared somewhat. Rakh-amn-hotep grew still, and noticed that he was seeing the swirling clouds across the valley almost as clearly as if they were just a few yards away. The priest king glanced back at Hekhmenukep.
“How is it that the gods share such power without requiring something in return?” he asked.
The King of Lybaras folded his thin arms and smiled. Like a tutor addressing a young student, he said, “Tahoth teaches us that the gifts of creation are hidden in the world around us,” he said. “If we are clever, we can uncover their mysteries and claim them for our own. In this way, we honour the gods.”
Rakh-amn-hotep tried to make sense of this, but gave up with a shrug. When they made camp that night he would make a sacrifice to Tahoth and consider the debt settled.
When he turned back, the King of Rasetra found that he’d lost the image once more. Frowning, he carefully drew back from the tube until once again the far end of the valley came into view.
Dust and more dust, the king observed irritably. Then he saw a glint of bronze wink from the murk, a reflection from a helmet, perhaps, or the tip of a blade. Then a vague shadow darkened the haze for a fleeting instant. Large and swift-moving, it was undoubtedly a man on horseback.
“The advance guard is engaged,” he muttered darkly, “and they’re fighting on our side of the valley mouth.” Rakh-amn-hotep rubbed his scarred chin thoughtfully. Years of battlefield experience suggested what was happening behind the curtain of dust. The advance guard numbered five thousand light horsemen, more than enough to overwhelm a small garrison of unprepared infantry within the space of half an hour. Instead, they were still fighting, riding madly back and forth through the thick haze rather than pushing their way through the mouth of the valley as they’d been ordered.
“Khsar flay their hides,” Rakh-amn-hotep cursed. “The Tomb Guard has beaten us to the Gates of the Dawn.” Hekhmenukep’s eyes widened in surprise.
“How is this possible?” he exclaimed. “We moved faster than any army has ever marched, and our scouts encountered no sentries along the way.”
“Who can say what powers the foul Usurper possesses?” said a sharp voice behind the two kings. “He has ruled unjustly in Khemri for more than two hundred years. It would not surprise me if every evil thing in Nehekhara is his to command.”
The kings turned as Nebunefer the Just struggled the last few yards up to the summit of the hill and limped painfully into their midst. The elderly priest was covered in a fine dusting of grit, coating his seamed face and dulling his bronze skullcap. He was attended by half a dozen senior priests and priestesses, each one raised in the great temples of Mahrak, the City of the Gods. Each of the hierophants wore fine linen robes in a variety of rich colours, from the Sun God’s gleaming yellow to Geheb’s mix of dark brown and vivid green. Rakh-amn-hotep noted their fierce expressions with secret amusement. How long had the Hieratic Council at Mahrak urged restraint in the face of Nagash’s mounting crimes, saying that the gods would see justice done? That was before the shadow spread from Khemri, felling thousands of priest and acolytes all across Nehekhara. Within days of that terrible event, the council was beating the drum of war. Using the Hierophants of Rasetra and Lybaras as go-betweens, they had hammered out a hasty alliance between the three cities and opened their immense coffers to finance a campaign to liberate Khemri once and for all.
Unfortunately, gold was all that the Hieratic Council seemed willing to provide. Rakh-amn-hotep had requested a contingent of Mahrak’s fabled warrior-priests to accompany the allied army, but Nebunefer and his small retinue were all that the city could spare.
“If Nagash knows we’re coming we could be facing the combined armies of Khemri and Quatar,” Rakh-amn-hotep growled. “We can’t possibly defeat them both.”
Nebunefer shook his head decisively, saying, “Our spies in Khemri report that the Usurper has taken his army south to fight the Bronze Host of Ka-Sabar. The massacre of holy men across Nehekhara has spurred Akhmen-hotep to declare war against the Living City.”
Hekhmenukep nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s welcome news,” he said, “but what of the remaining cities?”
“Numas and Zandri side with Nagash, along with Quatar,” Nebunefer replied. “Of the minor cities, Bhagar will probably follow Ka-Sabar, while Bel Aliad remains loyal to Khemri.”
“And what of Lahmia?” the King of Rasetra asked. “Their army is as large as mine and Hekhmenukep’s combined.”
“We have sent an embassy to Lahmia to urge them to action,” Nebunefer, said, shrugging, “but so far they remain neutral.”
“Waiting to see which side gains the upper hand,” Rakh-amn-hotep grumbled.
“Perhaps,” Nebunefer said. “Lahmia has ancient ties to the Living City. It is possible they are reluctant to take up arms against Neferem.” Hekhmenukep frowned.
“No one’s seen Neferem for more than a century. Surely she’s free of Nagash by now,” he said.
“No,” Nebunefer said uneasily. “The Queen of the Dawn is not dead. We would know it if she were.”
Suddenly, a chorus of wailing trumpets echoed up and down the allied battleline. Rakh-amn-hotep turned back to the swirling chaos at the western end of the valley. He could see the black specks of figures dancing at the ragged edges of t
he cloud. Scowling, he put his eye to Hekhmenukep’s device to try to see who they were. For a few moments, all he could see was a panorama of boiling dust, but then he caught sight of a horseman of the advance guard. The warrior’s horse was lathered and the rider was covered in dust. As the king watched, the warrior fitted an arrow to his bow and fired into the swirling dust, before retreating a dozen yards from the edge of the cloud. The same thing was happening all along the length of the dust cloud as the battered squadrons of light horsemen withdrew in the direction of their army.
Within moments, Rakh-amn-hotep saw why. A wall of white shields took shape out of the haze, growing larger and more distinct from one moment to the next. Slowly, inexorably, the first companies of the Tomb Guard advanced into the valley to meet their waiting foes.
“What is it?” Hekhmenukep asked. “What do you see?”
For a moment, Rakh-amn-hotep could not believe his eyes.
“The King of Quatar is impatient,” he said. “Instead of waiting for an assault, he’s chosen to come and fight us here.” He shook his head in wonder. “Nemuhareb has made a reckless mistake. With luck, we can make him pay for it.”
“How?” the King of Lybaras asked.
Rakh-amn-hotep glanced through the viewing-tube again. Strange as it was, he had to admit it was a damned useful tool. He gauged the speed of the enemy’s march and reckoned they had another half an hour before the Tomb Guard was in range. The king turned back to Hekhmenukep, and asked, “How quickly can your war machines be made ready?” The King of Lybaras looked to his viziers.
“Thirty minutes,” he said. “Perhaps a little less. They should only be half a mile behind us at this point.” Rakh-amn-hotep smiled.
“Then we’re going to get to see if they’re half as clever as you claim they are,” he replied, and then called out to the messengers waiting at the bottom of the hill.