The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  Neferem ignored the king’s question.

  “I want to see my son,” she said. Her voice had deepened over the years, roughened by an ocean of bitter tears.

  “That’s out of the question,” Nagash said coldly.

  “You’re taking Sukhet to war with you,” the queen replied, her voice quavering with barely repressed anger. “He’s still just a child, you soulless monster.”

  “I’m well aware of Sukhet’s age,” the king replied. “Believe me, I would just as soon leave him here, for he will no doubt be a burden on my retinue during a very difficult campaign, but you give me little choice. How else can I guarantee you won’t do something stupid while I’m gone?”

  Neferem’s eyes shone with tears. Defiantly, she held them back, and spoke with as much dignity as she could muster.

  “My place is with my husband,” she said. “You of all people should know that.”

  “You will join him in time, never fear,” Nagash replied. “How quickly that happens depends entirely on you.”

  “I will never marry you!” Neferem cried. The tears came. Hot with rage, they traced streaks of black down her perfect cheeks. “Your pathetic obsession sickens me. Hold me prisoner in this palace for another hundred years and it will only deepen my hatred of you.”

  Nagash was around the table and halfway to the queen before he knew what was happening. His hand was raised, ready to strike. Neferem’s maids wailed in terror and despair, lunging forwards to put their bodies between Nagash and their beloved queen. The Daughter of the Sun never flinched, but simply glared at the king as though daring him to strike her.

  The king went completely still, legs frozen in mid-stride. He breathed deeply, and forced his fist to unclench.

  “Shut up, you braying cows!” Nagash snarled at the whimpering maidens, and then stared hard at the queen. “Your feelings for me do not matter in the least,” the king said through clenched teeth. “And we shall see how stubborn you are after fifty years have passed, and your son has forgotten everything about you.” He inched closer. “The choice is yours, Neferem. Submit to me, now or later.”

  A shudder, born of anger and sorrow combined, wracked the queen’s body. Black tears fell from her cheeks and spattered on the stone floor, but Neferem did not yield.

  “Let me see my son,” she said again. “Please. Let him have his mother’s blessings before he leaves for war.”

  Nagash regarded her for a moment, considering her request. He took another step closer, his face mere inches from Neferem’s. He looked into the queen’s eyes and smiled.

  “Sukhet has no need of your blessings,” he said softly. “He will be at my side the entire time. Think on that while we are away, Neferem, and be content.”

  Two hours later, the last elements of Khemri’s small army departed from the Living City in a fanfare of trumpets and the thunder of hooves. Arkhan the Black was given command of the squadrons of light horsemen, while Nagash rode at the head of the chariots, manned by the recently elevated noble sons of the new great houses. By the king’s side stood Sukhet, a solemn-looking child of fifteen years who wore his father’s ill-fitting armour as he rode into battle. Out through the city’s western gate they went, down the Great Trade Road, in full view of however many spies King Nekumet had inside the city. Delegations from the city’s temples watched the king depart, their blessings unspoken. Nagash had made no offerings to the gods before leaving for war, nor had he requested the company of the priesthood to support the army. Such a thing, as far as they knew, was unprecedented.

  On into the deep desert night they rode, making good time down the broad, paved roadway. It wasn’t long before the swift-moving horses caught up with the tail end of the army’s infantry. Nagash called a brief halt to impress upon the company commanders the need to make the upcoming rendezvous on time, and then the cavalry pressed on.

  An hour after midnight, the horsemen reached the main camp of the Khemri army, close by the banks of the River Vitae. There the king conferred one last time with Arkhan, who would assume command of the entire cavalry force, and then there was nothing to do but wait for the coming dawn.

  Shepsu-hur arrived exactly on time, just as the first rays of light were breaking across the Brittle Peaks to the east. The huge, broad-bellied cargo haulers wallowed like hippos on the wide river, their hulls and long, spider-like oars backlit by the rising sun. No sooner had the first of the cargo ships pulled up to shore than the king gave the order to embark.

  Over the course of the day, four and a half thousand men struggled through the shallow waters along the river-bank and climbed aboard Shepsu-hur’s fleet. By late afternoon all fifteen ships were loaded, leaving just the light horsemen and chariots behind. Arkhan and the cavalry would continue west along the road to harass King Nekumet’s forces and hold the attention of his army.

  Four nights later, the fleet of cargo haulers slipped unseen past the watch-fires of the Zandri army and continued on to the sea.

  The ships from Khemri reached the mouth of the River Vitae at just past dawn of the sixth day and nosed out into the heaving, blue swells of the Great Ocean. From there, it was only a few miles to the harbour of Zandri. The cargo haulers worked their way past the breakwater in a disorderly mob and made for the first empty piers they could find. The bleary-eyed harbour master and his apprentices didn’t know what to make of the sudden arrivals at first. Were they part of a slaving expedition or a trading fleet that had arrived ahead of schedule? The ships flew no flags, and were no different in design from the coastal trading ships that Zandri used. So the harbourmaster scratched his head and checked his records, and the first ships had already tied up and were disembarking troops before he realised what was happening and sounded the alarm.

  The Khemri army took the city by storm. With its entire army far off to the east, Zandri was virtually defenceless in the face of Nagash’s attack. The few companies of the city watch that attempted to contest the landings were broken within an hour, and then Nagash’s troops descended upon the helpless inhabitants of the city.

  The sack of Zandri lasted for three horrifying days. Nagash’s forces systematically looted and burned their way from one end of the city to the other. The great slave markets were emptied and their human chattel loaded onto the Khemri ships. The city’s noble houses were pillaged and the families enslaved. Warehouses were emptied of valuable goods until the army’s ships could hold no more. The rest were put to the torch, along with two-thirds of the ships tied up in the harbour. Through it all, the embassies of the other great cities took refuge in the city temples and looked on with abject terror as Nagash took his revenge for all the humiliations that King Nekumet had heaped upon Khemri.

  On the morning of the fourth day, the traumatised survivors of the city crept furtively out into the streets to find their tormentors gone. The cargo haulers, packed with loot and thousands of slaves, had slipped their moorings and departed during the night. Nagash’s army, meanwhile, had passed through Zandri’s eastern gate and set out upon the Great Trade Road after King Nekumet and his warriors.

  Nagash set a brutal pace for his army, marching them all day and halfway through the night in an effort to catch up with the Zandri forces. They camped by the side of the road and ate whatever they had to hand before catching a few hours’ rest. Then, they rose at dawn and started the process again. Along the way they overtook a number of merchant caravans heading east with supplies for the Zandrians and relieved them of their burdens.

  Two gruelling weeks passed before the Khemri army’s scouts located the fires of the Zandri camp. The enemy’s march had been slowed nearly to a crawl by relentless attacks from Arkhan’s cavalry troops, and there were signs that their supplies were running low. With all of the Zandri scouts drawn eastwards, searching in the wrong direction for Nagash’s army, King Nekumet had no inkling that the bulk of Khemri’s forces were camped just a few miles along the road behind his troops.

  As the Khemri army settled wearily onto
the sands to either side of the road, Nagash ordered his men to erect a tent for him a few hundred yards further west, away from the bulk of the army. Sukhet, the young prince, was left in the care of Raamket, and the king sent Khefru to go and fetch one of the scores of slaves that the army had brought with them from Zandri. The battle would begin in earnest after first light, but Nagash intended for the opening moves to take place in the cold hours of darkness.

  Creating the ritual circle was difficult on the uneven ground in the centre of the tent, and reminded Nagash of the near-insurmountable problem he would face on the morrow. His army was still outnumbered two to one, and his men were nearly exhausted by the long march. The use of sorcery would be vital in the coming battle, but how could he draw upon the necessary life force to cast his spells? He would be too far from the battleline to make use of the deaths of his and Nekumet’s men, and an elaborate ritual circle would be difficult to create and maintain on the open ground. It was a problem he had yet to find a solution for.

  Nagash had just completed the circle when Khefru returned, dragging a young slave along with him. The young man, a long-limbed northern barbarian, was near catatonic with exhaustion, hunger and fear. He stumbled into the tent like a sacrificial bull, dull-witted and uncomprehending of his fate. The king pictured Khefru slitting the barbarian’s throat and emptying his blood into a copper bowl, just like those simpering fools in the Zandri camp.

  The king paused, suddenly frowning in thought. Khefru caught the change in his master’s demeanour and gave the barbarian a worried glance.

  “Is he not suitable?” the priest asked. “He’s strong and healthy, I assure you.”

  Nagash waved Khefru to silence. His mind raced, considering the possibilities. The king nodded to himself and dragged his foot through the ritual circle, obliterating its carefully formed lines.

  “What are you doing?” Khefru asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

  “Get that tunic off of him,” Nagash ordered. He went to a cedar chest by the tent flap and drew out a brush and a bottle of ink. “Then go find me a copper bowl. I want to try an experiment.”

  The priest shook his head in bemusement, but did as he was commanded. Nagash used a pair of copper needles to freeze the slave in place, and then began to paint the ritual symbols of the Incantation of Reaping directly onto the barbarian’s pale skin. By the time Khefru returned with a suitable bowl, the slave’s body was covered in hieroglyphic patterns.

  “What in the name of all the gods?” Khefru asked, staring at the slave’s body.

  “The name of the gods, indeed,” Nagash said. During the process he’d made refinements to the ritual markings, tailoring the incantation to the new process he’d envisioned. “The answer was right in front of me all along, Khefru. The priests drain the blood of the sacrificial bull and share it with the king and his men before battle. Why?” Khefru frowned thoughtfully.

  “So that they can receive the benefits of the ritual,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Nagash said. “And why the blood? Because it contains the animal’s life essence. Do you see? The power lies in the blood!” The necromancer straightened and drew his curved dagger. “Come here and ready the bowl.”

  The king reached up and grabbed a handful of the slave’s hair, bending the head forwards and placing the blade of the knife under his chin. Khefru had just enough time to get the bowl in position before Nagash slit the barbarian’s throat from ear to ear. As the steaming blood poured into the bowl he began to chant the Incantation of Reaping.

  Moments later the slave’s lifeless body toppled onto the ground. Nagash wiped the dagger clean using the slave’s hair, and then held a trembling hand over the bowl. His eyes lit with avarice.

  “I can feel it,” he whispered. “The power is there, in the blood!” He held out his hands. “Give it to me! Quickly!”

  Khefru offered up the bowl, and without hesitation Nagash brought it to his lips. It was hot and bitter, dribbling over his chin and staining his robes, but the taste set his nerves on fire. The slave’s vigour flooded into him, filling the king with strength unlike any he’d known before. Greedily, he took deeper and deeper draughts, until the blood ran in thick streams down his chest.

  Nagash let the empty bowl tumble from his fingers. Power radiated from his skin like heat from a forge.

  “More,” he hissed. “More!” The look he turned upon Khefru sent the young priest stumbling from the tent in terror.

  Burning with stolen vitality, Nagash threw back his head and uttered a terrible, triumphant laugh. Then he began to weave the incantations that would seal Zandri’s doom.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Spirits of the Howling Wastes

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

  (-1744 Imperial Reckoning)

  The skeletal horsemen attacked the army’s makeshift camp many times over the course of their first night in the desert, and did so every night thereafter.

  They would ride out of the darkness, dry hoofbeats near-silent on the shifting sands, and fire a volley or two of arrows into the press of men before whirling around and vanishing back into the night. Warriors would jerk awake at the screams of wounded men and scramble to their feet, believing that the undead hordes of Bel Aliad had caught up with them at last. Reeling with exhaustion, shivering with fear, they would clutch their weapons in white-knuckled hands and search frantically for the source of the attack, but by then the enemy was long gone. Cold and frustrated, the men of the Bronze Host eventually wrapped themselves back in their short cloaks and tried to calm down enough to sleep once more. Then, an hour or two later, the horsemen would attack once again.

  Sometimes the riders fired at random into the camp. Other times they sought out specific targets. They shot at any priest they could see, especially the handful of Neru’s acolytes who had survived the attack outside Bel Aliad. The ward they laid around the camp kept the undead riders at a distance, but the magical invocation had to be maintained in a constant, nightly vigil. Akhmen-hotep was forced to send a heavily armoured escort with the acolytes to shield them from enemy arrows as they walked the perimeter beneath the gleaming moon.

  It was a hazardous duty, and one or more of the acolytes’ bodyguards were wounded each night, but without the protective ward the army was vulnerable to more than just Nagash’s horsemen. The Great Desert was home to a multitude of hungry and malevolent spirits that preyed upon the living, and their howls could be heard among the dunes when the moon’s light was dim.

  Each dawn, the army would find itself a little diminished from the day before. Wounded men died in the night, overcome by their wounds or sickened by the chill air. Khalifra’s fever worsened as an infection set in around the barbed arrow in her shoulder. She lingered, raving, for four more days, but despite Memnet’s constant ministrations the high priestess finally succumbed. Her body was prepared as best as her acolytes could manage and wrapped in scavenged linen for the long journey home.

  The bodies of the common warriors were removed from the camp by a special detail overseen by Hashepra, the Hierophant of Geheb. Out of sight of their comrades, the men methodically dismembered the corpses and removed their organs, so that Nagash could not add them to his blasphemous ranks. Hashepra commended their spirits to Djaf and Usirian, and their mutilated bodies were buried beneath the sands.

  There was little water and even less food to keep the army going. Within three days they had to begin butchering the wounded horses and ration the meat carefully so that every warrior had at least something to eat. Nothing was wasted. Even the blood was collected carefully in Geheb’s great sacrificial bowls and given to the men a swallow at a time. The constant night attacks nevertheless took their toll, sapping the men’s strength and slowing their pace.

  It was eight days before the Bronze Host reached the first of the Bhagarite supply caches. The surviving desert raiders had turned sullen and belligerent since the retreat from Bel Aliad. They were furious with the king f
or taking their swords and leaving them to the mercy of the city’s undead citizens, and yet paradoxically resentful that they had not yet been allowed to die and join their kin, as they’d expected. The warriors of the host regarded them with naked hostility, blaming the Bhagarites more than Nagash for their present misery. After one of the guides was set upon by a gang of warrior-aspirants and nearly beaten to death, the king was forced to use his Ushabti to guard the Bhagarites from his warriors.

  After more than a week in the desert, hungry and fleeing from an implacable army of the dead, Akhmen-hotep’s men were becoming their own worst enemies.

  “How much?” the king asked, sitting in the cool shade cast by the gully wall. His voice was a dry, rasping croak, and his lips were cracked by thirst. Like the rest of the army, he drank only three cups of water per day, and the last drink had been more than four hours ago.

  The army had reached the third of the Bhagarite supply caches: a series of hidden caves among the narrow defiles of a range of sheer sandstone cliffs that rose like weathered monuments from the desert sands. When they’d arrived the warriors had scrambled like lizards into the shade of the twisting gullies, heedless of the serpents and scorpions that no doubt sheltered beneath the rubble at the base of the cliffs. Many of the warriors had cast aside their heavy bronze armour days ago, next went the shields, and even their polished helmets. Some didn’t even carry weapons any longer, having divested themselves of every bit of unnecessary weight that they could manage. They were ragged, filthy and dull-eyed, little more than animals preoccupied with survival in a hostile land. Only the king’s Ushabti maintained their weapons and harness, still true to their sacred oaths of service to their god and their king. The leonine devoted seemed untouched by the privations of the brutal retreat, sustained in body if not in spirit by the gifts of mighty Geheb. They were the king’s strong right hand, and perhaps the only thing that held the army together after all that it had suffered.