by Mike Lee
Once more, the warriors let out a great cheer and clashed their maces against their shields in salute. Their faces split in proud smiles to hear of the king’s esteem, and only the hard look in their dark eyes hinted at the ordeal they had been forced to endure. Ekhreb, the king’s champion and commander of the detachment, sank to one knee as the king descended from the chariot.
“None of that, by the gods!” Rakh-amn-hotep declared, waving his hand impatiently at his champion. “For all that you and your men have faced, you should never be asked to bow to another man again.” The king strode forwards and gripped the champion’s arms, nearly dragging the taller man onto his feet.
“Welcome back, great one,” Ekhreb replied in a deep voice. The champion was powerfully built, blessed with the strength and vitality of one of Ptra’s favoured sons. His face was wide and his jaw square, and his dark eyes glinted beneath a heavy, jutting brow. Sunlight shone on his shaven head, and gleamed from the gold rings in his ears.
His wide mouth quirked in a wry grin. “Six years is too long to be without your presence.”
“You are too kind, my friend,” Rakh-amn-hotep replied.
“Not at all. We thought you’d be back within the year. In fact, you said something along those lines just before you left.”
“It’s possible that I might have been a bit optimistic in my estimate.”
“We came to that same conclusion after the fourth year or so.” The two men chuckled, and then the king’s expression turned serious once more.
“How bad was it?” he asked quietly. The grin left Ekhreb’s face, and his expression turned bleak as he struggled for the right words. Finally he sighed.
“It was terrible,” he said. “None of us will lead virtuous lives after this. There is no hell that the gods can make that could equal what we faced here in Quatar.” Rakh-amn-hotep grimaced at the look in his champion’s face. He looked over the ranks of jubilant men at Ekhreb’s back.
“Is this all that remains? Barely a company of men out of forty thousand souls?” The champion nodded.
“Only the gods know how many deserted and headed for home during the early months. We tried to stop them, but once the fever took hold of the populace it was all we could do just to stay alive. The Lybaran army was all but destroyed within the first six months. We survived only because we fell back and shut the palace gates against the mob.” Ekhreb shrugged. “Would that I could regale you with tales of courage, but the truth is that we hid behind these walls and prayed for our survival. Eventually we realised that the plague couldn’t find its way into the palace.” Rakh-amn-hotep frowned.
“Why was that?” he asked. Ekhreb’s expression darkened.
“We wondered about that as well,” he said. “In the end, the only explanation that made any sense was that Nagash didn’t want it to. Nemuhareb fears that the Usurper has a special fate in mind for him and his family.” The king’s frown deepened.
“Has Nemuhareb caused any trouble?” Ekhreb shook his head.
“None,” he said. “He is a broken man, drowning his nightmares in wine and the milk of the black lotus. We’re the only reason he hasn’t been deposed.”
“I’m surprised there is anyone willing to take his place,” Rakh-amn-hotep muttered darkly. “How many citizens are left?”
“The gods alone know,” Ekhreb replied. “Less than a thousand, for certain. We have search parties combing each district of the city, and we’re still finding bodies. The city is one vast tomb. It will take generations for the city to recover, if at all.” The king nodded.
“I can see why the Lybarans chose to camp outside the walls,” he said.
“What of our own army?” the champion inquired. “When will they arrive?”
“It will be some weeks yet,” the king said with a sigh. “We were still several days from the Valley of Kings when the Lybaran sky-boat found us. It’s been slow going, all the way from Rasetra. We’ve got sixty thousand infantry and horsemen, plus another twelve thousand barbarian troops and their thunder lizards.” Rakh-amn-hotep shook his head. “I never should have let Guseb talk me into bringing the lizards along. So far, they’ve been more trouble than they’re worth. Fortunately, it appears that Nagash is in no hurry to march on the city, which had been my greatest cause for concern.”
“You can thank Hekhmenukep and Nebunefer for that,” Ekhreb said.
“Nebunefer?” the king asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “What’s that old schemer doing back here?”
“He arrived with the Lybarans,” the champion replied, “and then left almost at once for Ka-Sabar. Rumour has it, they’ve hatched a plan to keep Nagash distracted while we marshal our forces.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” the king said, scowling up at the palace. “Come on, old friend,” he growled, beckoning to Ekhreb. “Time to find out what our allies have been up to while I’ve been away.”
The black tower rose like a blade of stone in a swirling sea of sand. Just on the edge of the Great Desert, it was constantly assailed by the storms that howled across the hot dunes. The great blocks of basalt that comprised the tower’s outer surface had been smoothed to a mirror finish by the scouring sand. The sound it made against the stone was like the hissing of a hundred thousand hungry snakes, seeking the slightest crack or flaw to work their way inside.
Yet, work on the tower continued, even in the teeth of the raging wind. Day and night it went on. An army of slaves shaped stones and carried them to the base of the tower, where still more labourers dragged them up a vast, spiral ramp that wound sinuously around the tall spire to a height of more than two hundred feet. The ramp was made of wood and hides, and lashed together with thick coils of rope, and it wavered and trembled appallingly in the storm. It had collapsed many times, toppled by raging gales of wind or sawn through by the abrasive sand, and each time, scores of labourers were crushed beneath the weight of fallen timbers and splintered stone.
The lucky ones did not rise again. Most, however, pushed aside the fallen beams or clawed their way out through the sand, digging with ragged hands or the pointed tips of finger bones. Some squirmed right out of the ragged scraps of flesh and muscle that had once clothed their gleaming bones. Their strength was born of pure, relentless will, lashing at their trapped souls like a scourge.
The people of Bhagar did not know hunger, or pain, or fatigue. The last of them had died more than three years before at the feet of Arkhan’s black tower, fitting the foundation stones into place. The breath of their god raged impotently around them, scourging their bodies and hollowing out their eyes, and yet the tower continued to grow.
Constructing the tower had been an idea of Arkhan’s for some time, dating back to the early construction of his master’s mighty pyramid. When he found himself in possession of several thousand slaves after the conquest of Bhagar, the vizier saw his opportunity. While his master focused on raising his armies at Khemri, Arkhan proposed building the citadel to guard the city’s southern approaches against another attack from distant Ka-Sabar, or perhaps even a revolt in the Spice City of Bel Aliad. The Undying King considered this, and agreed.
In truth, Arkhan wished to distance himself from Nagash for an entirely different reason: namely, the king’s life-giving elixir. He chafed at the power that Nagash had over him by virtue of that terrible draught, but still its sorcerous formula eluded him. If he were to continue to serve the king from his seat at the black tower then Nagash would have no choice but to show the vizier how to craft the elixir for himself, or so he had thought.
Every six months a courier arrived from Khemri bearing a sealed chest that contained six vials of the elixir, just enough for one drink per month. The privation left him weak and thirsty all the time, and despite his best efforts he could never save enough of the liquid to study its properties for any length of time.
For the first two years after the slaughter at Bhagar the slaves had dug deep into the rocky soil with crude picks and shovels, crea
ting the first of the tower’s many floors more than fifty feet underground. Arkhan summoned stonemasons from Khemri to guide the slaves in their work, while his undead horsemen stood watch from the surrounding dunes. Later, the slaves were sent back to their home city and set to work demolishing their homes for the stone needed to shape the tower’s foundation.
The deepest of the underground vaults was set aside for Arkhan. Although nothing like the grand eminence of his master’s marble crypt, the chambers served the immortal’s immediate needs. It had taken most of a year to move his household from the Living City to the distant tower due to the raging storms, and many loyal servants perished along the way. The rest he killed with poison as soon as they arrived. They waited upon him in the gloom of his sanctum, their shrivelled bodies wrapped in robes of blackest linen and wrought with arcane sigils of preservation.
Arkhan was within his inner sanctum, poring over scrolls of arcane lore and studying the ruby depths of one of his precious vials of elixir when he heard a faint, hissing rustle in the dark corners of the room. For the briefest instant he thought that the questing sand had finally found its way inside the black tower, driven by the implacable hate of Khsar the Faceless, whose people Arkhan had murdered. Pure terror coursed through the immortal’s veins. Then, in a flash he snatched up a guttering lamp and advanced across the room, banishing the deep shadows before him.
Lamplight glittered on shining black carapaces. Scarabs were pouring from cracks in the stonework and flowing in a seething carpet across the sanctum’s floor.
Arkhan took a step back, clenching the vial of elixir tightly in his hand as he prepared to cast a fiery incantation. The scarabs came together in the centre of the chamber, leaping into the air with a dry clatter of wings and swirling into a seething, glittering cloud.
The words of the incantation died upon Arkhan’s lips as the cloud took on a familiar shape.
“Loyal servant,” said a voice from the depths of the rustling cloud. It was born of scraping mandibles and buzzing wings, scrabbling legs and dusty carapaces, but its identity was unmistakeable. Stunned, Arkhan bowed before the visage of Nagash.
“I am here, master,” the vizier said, tucking the vial into his sleeve. “What is your command?”
“Our enemies march against us once more,” the necromancer said. The vague outline of Nagash’s face turned towards the vizier. “New armies are gathering at Quatar, and the Bronze Host crosses the Great Desert to strike at Bel Aliad.”
“Crossing the desert? Impossible!” Arkhan exclaimed. “The storms—”
“The storms are the work of the craven priests of Mahrak,” Nagash hissed. “They hope to hinder our efforts and conceal the movements of their troops. Even now, refugees from Bhagar are leading the warriors of Ka-Sabar along the secret pathways of the desert tribes. They will reach Bel Aliad within a fortnight. They do not know, however, that there is a traitor in their midst, one who has worshipped me for many years, since the defeat at Zedri. He will deliver the Bronze Host into our hands, and then the City of Bronze itself!”
Arkhan’s mind raced as he considered the sudden turn of events.
“My warriors stand ready, master,” he said. “What would you have us do?”
“Take your undead horseman and ride for Bel Aliad,” the necromancer said. “Once you arrive, this is what you must do.”
The necromancer told Arkhan of his plan in hissing, crackling tones. The vizier listened with his head bowed low, contemplating the downfall of Akhmen-hotep and the people of Ka-Sabar.
TWELVE
Designs upon a Crown
Khemri, the Living City, in the 44th year of Geheb the Mighty
(-1962 Imperial Reckoning)
The slave girl knelt on the stone floor in the centre of the magical circle, her body rigid with agony as Nagash intoned the Incantation of Reaping. Only two days before, she had arrived in the Living City on a slave ship from Zandri, taken in a raid on the barbarian lands to the far north. Bright blue eyes stared up at Nagash in mindless terror. Her mouth gaped wide in a frozen shriek of pain, revealing fine, white teeth and a squirming tongue. Her shoulders trembled as she struggled for breath. The Grand Hierophant had been careful to allow her muscles just enough flexibility for her to breathe enough air so that she could remain conscious and alert. It had taken many months and countless experiments before he was capable of such precise control.
Nagash’s powerful voice echoed from the stone walls of his sanctum beneath the Great Pyramid as he continued the remorseless, savage chant. He spoke in Nehekhem, not in the debased, snake-like tongue of his prisoners. His knowledge of their barbaric magic had grown in leaps and bounds in the three years since he’d slain that hapless fool Imhep. The spilling of blood, the unwinding of a living spirit from its bindings of flesh and bone, these things were second nature to him now.
The words of the ritual rang like the tolling of a bell, rising in tempo as Nagash focused his will upon the slave girl’s labouring heart. Her heartbeat began to hammer in time with his chanting voice, and the air between them crackled with invisible power. The Grand Hierophant clenched his fists and felt the warmth of the girl’s life force against his skin. His voice rose to an exultant shriek as the chant rose in tempo, and wisps of smoke began to curl from the slave’s pale skin. Her trembling ceased. Veins stood out starkly at her temples and along the sides of her throat. Nagash felt the beat of her heart rise to a glorious crescendo. Then her body gave a single, violent spasm and exploded into a column of hissing green flame.
Nagash plunged his hands into the seething inferno, feeling the power race along his skin as he seized the slave girl’s throat. With an inhaled breath and an exertion of will, he drew her life force into him. His veins burned, and her final cries rang soundlessly along his bones. It was over in a moment, and her body, drained of every dreg of power, collapsed in a heap of steaming bones at Nagash’s feet.
This was but a prelude, a gathering of strength for the real work that was about to begin. Wrapped in ethereal mist and glowing with unholy energy, the Grand Hierophant stretched out his arms once more and turned his attention to the wooden cage just a few feet beyond the edge of the magic circle. Dusky figures stirred inside, half-hidden by the shifting shadows cast by the room’s guttering oil lamps. They were siblings, a young man and a woman in the full bloom of youth and of noble birth, whom Khefru had found in the wine houses near the docks. The discovery had been a stroke of luck. Nagash’s requirements for his next experiment had been very specific, and he had been forced to wait months for the pair to fall into the young priest’s clutches.
With the last syllables of the Incantation of Reaping still echoing in the chamber, Nagash began his next ritual. The first phrases were simple enough, serving to focus the Grand Hierophant’s concentration, but grew swiftly in cadence and complexity as the first stages of the transformation began.
He had learned very quickly that there were limits to the power of a human soul. When Imhep breathed his last and poured out his lifeblood onto Nagash’s hands, the Grand Hierophant felt his veins turn to fire and believed himself a god, but that wondrous energy faded all too quickly. A single human life could fuel a minor druchii spell, but no more. Malchior had responded to his frustrations with a shrug. A soul was but a puff of breath compared to the wild winds of magic that fuelled the druchii’s greater rituals.
The warlock had known this all along. It was yet another of the barbarians’ devious traps. Malchior could fulfil the letter of their agreement by teaching Nagash the incantations and rituals of druchii magic lore in the full knowledge that the Grand Hierophant would never amass enough power to attempt the more potent spells. Such an effort would require scores, if not hundreds of souls, a process that was far too unwieldy to perform in a single rite, and on too large a scale to avoid notice by Thutep and the city nobles. No doubt Malchior hoped that Nagash’s lust for power would tempt him to recklessness and self-destruction. Instead, the Grand Hierophant began to app
ly his new-found powers in another direction, namely the accumulated arcane lore of Settra’s mortuary cult.
For more than two thousand years, the cult of eternal life had plumbed the dark mysteries of life and death. Their ancient tomes were filled with theoretical rituals to harness the soul and manipulate the invisible workings of flesh and bone. Until now, however, their practical rites were minor in comparison to those of the druchii, because the liche priests depended on the gifts of the gods to fuel their incantations. All that had changed when Imhep had poured out his lifeblood over Nagash’s hands.
This new incantation was based upon an older rite found in the cult’s body of arcane lore. Nagash had spent the better part of a year altering and refining the ritual to suit his plans. Now he would put it to the test.
The arcane chant rolled like thunder from Nagash’s tongue, driven by the energies stolen from the slave girl. He focused on the two shadowy forms crouching at the far end of their cage and extended his hands towards them. At once, the young siblings collapsed to the floor, moaning in fear and pain. Power flowed from his fingertips and played across their naked forms.
Nagash performed the incantation for nearly an hour, until the last vestiges of stolen energy sped from his fingertips. As the rite concluded, he spoke a single name.
“Shepresh,” he said, and lowered his arms. Silence fell, punctuated by soft, choking sounds from inside the cage and the swish of an ink brush from the corner of the sanctum to Nagash’s left.
Khefru continued to note his observations in a huge, leather-bound book for several long minutes after the rite was completed. Nagash’s erstwhile tutors were absent. Since he had begun to apply his new-found abilities to the lore of the mortuary cult, the Grand Hierophant found that he required the presence of the druchii less and less. Soon, Nagash suspected that their long-term arrangement would finally come to an end.