The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  On the plain below, the allied cavalry was pacing after the retreating enemy like a pack of wolves, edging closer and closer to the swirling clouds and their promise of sweet, life-giving moisture. Hekhmenukep gestured towards the horsemen with a wave of his hand. “Will you order a general pursuit?” he asked.

  Rakh-amn-hotep shook his head. “Much as I would like to ride the enemy into the ground, our troops are tired and half-dead of thirst,” he said, “and we must see to the bodies of the dead before we press on.” He nodded towards the swirling mists. “We’ll press forwards with the cavalry, seize the fountains, and tend to our wounded by the sacred springs.” The Fountains of Eternal Life, an ancient gift from the Goddess Asaph, were legendary for their healing properties, and only the great River Vitae was more revered in Nehekharan lore. Hekhmenukep nodded in agreement.

  “Now that the sky-boats have emptied their holds we could press ahead with the horsemen and take on water while the rest of the army deals with the dead and wounded,” he said. The Rasetran king considered this.

  “A reasonable plan,” he said. He waved to the nearest signaller. “Send word to the cavalry and the chariots to continue the advance.”

  Orders were relayed to the horsemen and the seven sky-boats drifting at the edges of the mists. As the kings’ vessel pulled alongside, the entire armada began a graceful descent into the pearly white clouds. Men crowded around the rails of each ship, eager for the first, blessed caress of cool, damp air.

  Rakh-amn-hotep watched the mist rise past the keel of the sky-boat and sweep silently over the rails. It wound around his outstretched arms and passed like a veil across his face, but instead of feeling life-giving moisture against his parched skin, he felt only dry, dead air and the smell of dusty smoke against the back of his throat. Hekhmenukep coughed, and other members of the crew cried out in bewilderment.

  Moments later, the sky-boat sank through the layers of mist and broke into open air, less than a hundred feet above the ground. Rakh-amn-hotep blinked his dry, stinging eyes and looked out across the great, hilly basin and its silvery pools of sacred water. What he saw filled him with horror.

  The great basin, wrought by a holy union between Asaph and mighty Geheb, contained dozens of irregular pools, lined by winding paths covered in rich, green moss. The sacred, silver waters had been defiled, however. Each pool had been filled with the rotting corpses of the men slain in battle the previous day. Billowing stains of blood and bile desecrated Asaph’s life-giving pools, covering their surface in a scum of foulness and corruption. The retreating warriors of the Usurper’s host were filing back across the basin. Their former panic had subsided, and their companies were slowly re-forming as they withdrew down the once-sacred paths.

  Men fell to their knees aboard the sky-boat, stricken dumb by the enormity of Nagash’s crime. Hekhmenukep’s hands trembled upon the rail.

  “How?” he stammered, unable to tear his gaze away from the desecration. “How could he do this?”

  Rakh-amn-hotep could not answer. No words could suffice.

  A vast sea of tents lay across the great basin, surrounded by companies of heavily armoured swordsmen. Concealed from the sun by the fountains’ tainted vapours, Nagash’s pale-skinned immortals stood in plain view, surrounding a great black tent that crouched like a spider at the centre of the camp.

  The Rasetran king stared down at the distant gathering of monsters, and in that instant he felt the weight of a vast and soulless regard, like a cold knife pressed against his skin. For the first time in his life, the warrior-king felt truly afraid.

  Then, from the midst of the pale immortals, a whirling column of darkness soared high into the air. It struck the swirling clouds and spread outwards, like a pool of boiling ink. As the leading edge of the wave sped towards the drifting sky-boats, Rakh-amn-hotep heard the rising buzz of locusts.

  “Turn us around,” he said breathlessly. “Do you hear? Turn us around! Hurry!”

  Men began shouting all around the king as the swarm of ravening insects swept over the sky-boat. Rakh-amn-hotep staggered, feeling thousands of tiny legs scrabbling at his skin as the wave washed over him. They battered his face, clawing at his eyes and biting at his face. He roared in anger and revulsion, sweeping futilely at the swarm with his arms. Stinging pain lanced across his bare hands and wrists. He staggered backwards and fell to the deck, crunching hundreds of hungry insects beneath him.

  Above the raging drone of the swarm and the scream of terrified men, the Rasetran king heard a crackling, tearing noise overhead. Blood streaming down his face, Rakh-amn-hotep clawed the insects from his eyes long enough to glimpse a roiling carpet of locusts ravaging the great bladder that kept the sky-boat aloft. As he watched, the canvas split and unravelled like a rotting carpet, releasing the air spirits trapped within.

  There was an ominous creaking of timbers, and then Rakh-amn-hotep felt his stomach lurch as the sky-boat plunged to the ground.

  TWENTY

  The Long, Bitter Road

  The Great Desert, in the 63rd year of Ptra the Glorious

  (-1744 Imperial Reckoning)

  The skeletal horsemen attacked again just before dusk, riding down upon the retreating army with the blood-red sun at their backs. The desiccated horses and their riders seemed to glide across the sands. Their bodies, baked by the desert heat, were nothing but tattered leather, bone and cured sinew, and together they weighed not much more than a living man. Warriors at the head of the column barely had time to shout a warning before the first arrows struck home.

  Screams and hoarse cries from the head of the army stirred Akhmen-hotep from his stupor. He and the survivors of the army had been on the march since midnight, fleeing ever deeper into the desert after the nightmarish attack outside Bel Aliad. The enemy cavalry had harried them every step of the way, sweeping through the disordered column at will and leaving a trail of dead and wounded men in their wake. Barely thirty in number, the undead horsemen weren’t numerous enough to cause widespread destruction, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in tireless, hateful determination. Fearful of being overtaken by the vengeful dead of Bel Aliad, Akhmen-hotep had kept the army on the march, all through the night and into the searing heat of the day. Now they staggered drunkenly across the sands, delirious from exhaustion and the merciless lash of the sun.

  The king raised his head at the clamour from the front of the host.

  “Shields!” he yelled hoarsely as the first of the enemy riders came into view. The skeleton’s mount was in full gallop, and Akhmen-hotep could see its shoulders working through ragged holes in its hide and hear the faint slap of its cracked hooves against the soft ground. Ribbons of parchment-like skin flapped like gory pennons from the rider’s bleached skull as it raced along the length of the column. Its recurved horn bow was held at the ready. As the king watched, the horseman drew back the string in one smooth motion and loosed an arrow as it shot past one of the army’s remaining chariots. There was a bloodcurdling scream and one of the chariot’s horses collapsed to the ground.

  Cursing through parched lips, Akhmen-hotep staggered towards the galloping rider. Shouts filled the air around him, but the king paid them no heed. All that mattered to him at that moment was stopping the damned monster before it killed another of their horses. Roaring in frustration and anger he raised his heavy khopesh and swung at the skeletal rider, but the horseman was still out of reach. His blow went wide and the raider swept past, readying another arrow for a victim further down the line.

  “Here I am!” Akhmen-hotep cried as the rider galloped away. “Turn about and face me, abomination! Slay the King of Ka-Sabar, if you dare—”

  Suddenly the king felt a powerful hand clamp around the back of his neck, and he was hauled backwards off his feet as though he were nothing more than a child. A weapon hissed through the air. Akhmen-hotep smelled musty leather and bone dust, and then he heard a terrible crunch! Something sharp struck his cheek and glanced away, and then he saw
the smashed pieces of a skeletal horse and its rider tumble across the sand in front of him.

  “Have a care, great one,” the deep voice of Hashepra, Hierophant of Geheb, rumbled in the king’s ear. The huge priest sidled backwards, his hammer at the ready, drawing Akhmen-hotep along with him. “Master yourself, lest you shake the confidence of your men. We’re in a tough enough position as it is.”

  Akhmen-hotep struggled against the roar of impotent rage building in his throat. Another enemy horseman rode past, his body pierced by arrows. As the king watched, the creature drew one of the long shafts from its chest, fitted it to its bow and fired it at a living horse. The strange, almost absurd image filled the king with frustration and despair.

  “By all the gods, how are we to fight these things?” he whispered hoarsely. “Every man we kill rises again. Every kinsman we lose turns his dead hands against us.” With an effort, he planted his feet and twisted out of Hashepra’s grip. “And for every one of these monstrosities we slay, ten more spring up in its place.” He turned to the hierophant. “Tell me, priest, how does a man defeat a foe as numberless as the sands?”

  The Hierophant of Geheb stared into the king’s eyes for a long moment, and Akhmen-hotep saw a reflection of his own despair in the priest’s face.

  “The gods alone know,” he said at last, and then he turned away. “Come back to the chariots, great one. The enemy has passed us by for the moment. It will be dark soon, and there is much for us to discuss.”

  Akhmen-hotep watched the priest trudge wearily back to the line of battered chariots less than a dozen yards away. The bleak look in Hashepra’s eyes had chilled him to the bone. “The gods know,” he said, and tried to draw some strength from the words. “The gods know.”

  Dazedly, the king joined Hashepra back at his chariot. During the chaos of the retreat, the war machines had been pressed into service as makeshift wagons to carry whatever supplies they could salvage from the camp, as well as providing transport for wounded priests and nobles. Two figures rested uneasily among sacks of grain and jars of water in the back of the king’s chariot. Khalifra, High Priestess of Neru, had been made as comfortable as possible among the cargo. The stub of an arrow jutted from her left shoulder, and her face was drawn and feverish as she slept. Memnet sat beside her, his sallow features bathed in sweat. The fat priest had a damp cloth pressed against Khalifra’s brow.

  “We must make camp soon,” Memnet was saying as Akhmen-hotep approached. “The men and animals are past exhaustion. If we continue any further we will kill more men than the enemy will.”

  “If we stop, the enemy will attack us in strength,” the king said wearily. “They will overwhelm us.”

  “We don’t know if there are any more of them out there besides the damned horsemen,” Hashepra said. “Great one, we have to stop sooner or later. Better now while we’ve still got the strength to defend the camp.”

  “Also, we must take stock and see how many men we have left,” Memnet pointed out. “Not to mention our supplies.”

  “And we must talk to the Bhagarites,” Hashepra continued. “We will need to find a supply cache or an oasis soon.”

  “All right, all right,” Akhmen-hotep said, raising his hands in surrender. “We’ll camp here, and move on before first light tomorrow. Pass the word to the men.”

  With the decision made, the king’s strength seemed to leave him. His limbs felt as heavy as lead, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to crawl into the dubious shade beneath the chariot and sleep. Hashepra began issuing orders to a group of messengers waiting nearby when the sound of hoofbeats approached them from the rear of the column.

  Akhmen-hotep whirled, thinking Nagash’s horsemen had decided to turn around and strike them again, but even as he raised his blade the king saw that both horse and rider were figures of flesh and blood rather than leather and bone. As the horseman drew near, Akhmen-hotep saw that it was none other than Pakh-amn, and it occurred to the king that he hadn’t seen the Master of Horse since the attack the night before.

  “Where have you been?” he asked without preamble as the young nobleman reined in his exhausted mount beside the chariot. Pakh-amn’s face betrayed a flash of irritation at the king’s tone.

  “I’ve been organising a rearguard and taking stock of our situation,” he replied curtly. “I thought you might like to know the state of our army, great one.” Hashepra bridled at the young noble’s peremptory tone, but Akhmen-hotep forestalled him with a wave of his hand.

  “Well. Let’s have it then,” he said to the Master of Horse.

  “We’ve got two thousand five hundred men left, more or less,” the young noble said, “though close to a third of them are wounded to one degree or another. No one has any camp gear to speak of, though perhaps a quarter of the men managed to escape camp with a couple of days’ worth of food stuffed into their belt-pouches.” Pakh-amn nodded in the direction of the chariots. “Hopefully you enjoyed better luck with the baggage train before we fled.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Akhmen-hotep replied. “What about the Bhagarites?” Pakh-amn’s expression turned grim.

  “Whether it was the will of the gods or Nagash’s own design, the Bhagarites suffered dearly during the night,” he answered. “Some of the men swear that the skeletal raiders went out of their way to kill the desert bandits. Out of the hundred that accompanied us from Ka-Sabar, less than twenty remain.” He shrugged. “Perhaps if they’d still had their swords when the attack began, they could have better defended themselves.” Hashepra’s face darkened with rage.

  “It’s time someone knocked some manners into you, boy,” he said quietly.

  “Enough, holy one,” Akhmen-hotep declared. “Remember what you said about setting an example for the men. The Master of Horse offends no one but his ancestors with such petty behaviour.” Pakh-amn let out a derisive snort.

  “Petty?” he said. “I merely speak the truth. If the king is not strong enough to face it, then he’s no true king at all.”

  “There is truth, and then there is sedition,” Memnet said. “The king could have you executed for such talk, Pakh-amn.”

  The Master of Horse glared at the Grand Hierophant, and said, “I can think of perhaps a thousand men who would disagree with your opinion, priest.”

  Akhmen-hotep stiffened. Suddenly, Memnet’s warning from the night before echoed in his mind. Who can say what he might do if he found himself in a position of influence over much of the army?

  If he gave the word, Hashepra would strike the young nobleman down with a single blow from his hammer. Just as the command rose to his lips, Pakh-amn turned to him and said, “Forgive me, great one. Like you, I’m very tired, and my nerves are on edge. But I am happy to say that all is not yet lost.”

  “And how is that?” the king asked.

  “I have been speaking to the Bhagarite survivors,” the nobleman said. “They know of a supply cache a day’s ride from here.”

  “A day’s ride is two or more days on foot,” Hashepra countered. “Half the army will be dead before we get there.” Pakh-amn nodded.

  “Unless we empty the chariots and send them ahead to gather supplies,” he said. “I could take the remaining Bhagarites as guides and outriders, plus a few hundred picked men. Then in a day’s time you march with the rest of the army and meet us halfway back on the return leg. It would be difficult, but not impossible.”

  Akhmen-hotep paused, rubbing at the grit surrounding his eyes as he tried to think through the nobleman’s plan. It seemed sound… if he could trust the Master of Horse. Could he risk sending off all his chariots and most of his guides under Pakh-amn’s command? Even if he chose someone else to lead the expedition, how could he know for certain if the man wasn’t one of Pakh-amn’s sympathisers? The Master of Horse could then slip away in the night and join his compatriots, leaving the army to its fate and returning safely to Ka-Sabar.

  The king looked to his brother for advice. Memnet said nothing, bu
t the look in his dark eyes spoke volumes. Akhmen-hotep sighed and shook his head.

  “We can’t risk the chariots, or the guides,” he said. “We’ll ration our supplies and head for the oasis as best we can.”

  Pakh-amn’s eyes widened at the king’s decision, but then his jaw clenched in anger.

  “So be it,” he said tightly, “but men will die needlessly as a result. You will regret this decision, Akhmen-hotep. Mark my words.”

  The nobleman spun on his heel and strode swiftly to his horse. Akhmen-hotep watched him go, debating the idea of ordering Pakh-amn’s arrest. Would arresting him prevent a mutiny, or provoke one?

  The next thing he knew, Hashepra was gently shaking his shoulder.

  “What shall we do, great one?” the hierophant asked.

  Akhmen-hotep shook himself, as though waking from a dream. Pakh-amn’s galloping horse was already a long distance away, heading back to the rear of the host.

  “Make camp,” the king said dully. “Then pick some men you trust and have them go over the supplies. We’ll start rationing right away. Send runners looking for any servants of Neru that might have survived. We could use a ward to protect the camp once it gets dark.” Hashepra nodded.

  “And then?” he asked. The king shrugged. “Then we try to survive the night,” he said in a hollow voice.

  Sensations slowly penetrated the darkness: throbbing pain in his chest, shoulders and back, and then the swelling roar of thousands of shouting voices. Cool, slightly oily water lapped against his lower legs, caressing his parched skin. For an instant, his brain was seized with competing sensations of pure terror and giddy relief.

  After a moment, the cacophony of noise surrounding Rakh-amn-hotep resolved into the familiar noise of the battlefield. Wounded men screamed all around him, begging for help, while off in the distance hundreds of men shouted lustily for the blood of their foes. The Rasetran king realised in a daze that they were probably referring to him.