The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  Men prostrated themselves as the immortal and his retinue approached, cowering and trembling with terror. Some clawed at their faces and moaned like children, their sanity having fled at last. Of the four thousand warriors that had followed Akhmen-hotep on his ill-fated expedition, less than five hundred still survived.

  The immortal guided his undead mount down a long, corpse-choked lane that ran all the way to the centre of the camp. Memnet the traitor awaited him there, standing over the body of his brother. Blood still stained the fallen priest’s hands.

  Arkhan reined in his decaying horse before Memnet and gave the wretch a haughty stare.

  “Kneel before the Undying King of Khemri,” he commanded.

  Memnet flinched at Arkhan’s voice, but he raised his head in a gesture of defiance.

  “I kneel only before my master,” the traitor said, “and you are not him, Arkhan the Black.”

  The immortal chuckled. Suddenly, a harsh, rasping wind rose among the company of skeletons at his back. Memnet first took the sound to be a kind of laughter, and perhaps it was, but the sound came not from desiccated throats, but from the stirring of insects that poured from empty eye sockets and gaping mouths, or crawled from the depths of ragged wounds. The swarm took flight, swirling into a column of seething life that descended before Memnet and assumed the image of Nagash.

  “Bow before your master,” rasped the voice of the necromancer.

  Memnet fell to his knees with a cry of fear, saying, “I hear you, mighty one! I hear and obey! All has been done as you commanded,” he said, gesturing to the body of the king. “See? Akhmen-hotep, your hated foe, is no more!” The head of the construct seemed to regard the dead king, and then turned to face Memnet once more.

  “You have done well. Now rise, and claim your reward,” he said. Wringing his hands, Memnet struggled to his feet. Arkhan dismounted and stepped forwards with a sneer of contempt. Reluctantly he held out a vial of red liquid.

  “Immortality is yours,” the king said. “Take it, and go forth to rule Ka-Sabar in my name.”

  Memnet took the vial and gazed at its contents with a mixture of awe and revulsion. “As you command, Undying One,” he replied. “My men will require food and water to complete our march.” Arkhan threw back his head and laughed. Memnet cringed at the awful sound.

  “We have given you all the food we had,” he said coldly. “Fear not. Your warriors will soon have no need for it.”

  “Do you remember all I taught you?” the necromancer asked.

  “I remember,” Memnet replied. “All the dreams… they are still locked in my head. I know the incantations, master, every line, every syllable.”

  “Then drink the elixir, and power over the dead will be yours,” Nagash declared. “Drink. Your army awaits.”

  Memnet stared at the vial for a moment longer, and then pulled off the stopper and drank the elixir in one swallow. A shudder wracked his wasted frame, and with a cry he fell to the ground, writhing and convulsing as the elixir burned through his veins.

  Arkhan turned away from the spectacle with an expression of disgust. He looked westwards, where the rest of Memnet’s army was slowly approaching over the dunes. All the corpses of Bel Aliad, men, women and children, plus the city’s slaughtered mercenaries and the Bronze Host’s battlefield dead, shuffled silently across the sands. The desert sun had rendered them down to nothing more than scraps of leathery flesh and bleached bone, and they numbered in the thousands.

  The image of Nagash wavered and broke apart, transforming once again into a column of rasping, whirling insect life. It sped across the sands, engulfing Arkhan’s form, and then like a desert cyclone it recoiled into the night sky, taking the immortal with it.

  When Memnet’s senses finally returned he was alone except for the broken souls of his brother’s army and the raw, grinning faces of his own.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The White Gates

  The Western Trade Road, near Quatar, the City

  of the Dead, in the 63rd year of Ptra the Glorious

  (-1744 Imperial Reckoning)

  Like a wounded giant, the allied army stumbled and lurched its way along the winding road back to Quatar, leaving a trail of flesh and blood with each ponderous step.

  Rakh-amn-hotep kept the army in camp during the worst heat of the day and on the march at night, believing that the Usurper’s pursuing army couldn’t manage a major attack beneath Ptra’s blazing sun. There had been probing attacks by Numasi cavalry at dawn and dusk, but each time they were rebuffed with little loss. Nagash’s main force, as far as the Rasetran king could gather, was at least half a day’s march to their west, following them doggedly along the trade road.

  Rakh-amn-hotep believed that Nagash was biding his time, like a jackal waits for its prey to weaken in the desert heat before closing in for the kill.

  The defeat at the Fountains of Eternal Life haunted the Rasetran king, a man who had spent his entire adult life on the battlefield. He had plotted and planned the western march for more than two years, and in the end Rakh-amn-hotep had discovered that he wasn’t even fighting the same sort of battle that his enemy was. He had read all the accounts of the battle at Zedri and believed himself a better general than either Nagash or Akhmen-hotep, but he had still made the fatal error of fighting the Usurper as though he were a mortal king in command of a civilised army.

  Nagash, however, was not swayed by furious assaults or swift cavalry movements. The thought of seeing thousands of his citizens, the lifeblood of his city, cut down on the battlefield was little more than an irritation to him. He could suffer blows that would have crushed a mortal king, only to rise once more.

  Rakh-amn-hotep had begun to despair that they would ever be rid of Nagash.

  More than three weeks after the battle outside the Fountains, the king could only think of keeping the army alive for one more day. The retreat had been a bitter, gruelling ordeal, without a doubt the hardest march of Rakh-amn-hotep’s long life. Surviving those first days after the battle had been the hardest. With the water casks empty, the king had ordered his Ushabti to comb the army for every drop of liquid they could find. They confiscated all the remaining wine carried by the army’s noblemen, and all the sacrificial libations brought by their multitude of priests.

  The cavalrymen kept themselves alive by turning to the old bandit trick of drinking a cupful of their horses’ blood each day. Even so, the warriors and animals of the host weakened quickly, and many of the wounded succumbed within days. It was only by the constant efforts of the Lybaran priests that their king, Hekhmenukep, still clung to life.

  With the Lybaran sky-boats destroyed by Nagash’s sorcery, the allied army paid the price of travelling without a proper baggage train. There were few wagons to draw upon, forcing Rakh-amn-hotep to send detachments of light cavalry on a long, dangerous march off to the north to try to draw water from the River Vitae, many leagues away. The cavalrymen were harassed by Numasi horsemen the entire way, but their courage and determination kept the army going long past the point of collapse.

  Still, both armies had suffered greatly in men, animals and materiel. The Lybarans had seen every one of their war machines destroyed, for those that had survived the battle had exhausted their energies and couldn’t keep pace with the army’s swift retreat. Rather than allow the constructs to fall into the Usurper’s hands, the army’s engineers had breached the binding wards that kept the machines’ fire-spirits in place. The resulting eruptions blew the engines apart in thunderous blasts of wood, metal and steam. Some of the senior Lybaran engineers, men who had devoted much of their lives to creating these wondrous machines, gave themselves up to the fires.

  The Rasetrans suffered as well, particularly their jungle auxiliaries. The rationing of water amounted to a virtual death sentence for the giant thunder lizards, whose bodies were already taxed near to breaking point by the dry climate. The last of the great beasts died within a week after the battle, and the numbers of lizardm
en dwindled swiftly thereafter. During the long night marches the chill desert air carried the eerie, keening sounds of the barbarians’ death songs as they mourned the loss of their kin. The song died away a bit at a time, each and every night, until finally it was heard no more.

  All that remained of the once-proud allied army was a bedraggled horde of wasted men and horses, and Rakh-amn-hotep had to concern himself with keeping his warriors from casting away their heavy weapons and armour to lighten their load on the march. He had already instituted severe punishments for warriors who were found to have abandoned their wargear, and still, each night the rearguard came upon bundles of leather armour and helmets, bronze swords and spears. The king would have begun ordering the offenders impaled if he’d had any wood to spare. He would be damned if he got the army back to Quatar only to find that they’d thrown away all the tools they would need to keep the city out of Nagash’s hands.

  The army was close to the White City, thank the gods, and the Brittle Peaks dominated the eastern horizon, their jagged flanks a dull black against the deep blue vault of the heavens.

  Rakh-amn-hotep’s chariot was heading westwards, back along the army’s long, sinuous line of march. The king spent most every night ranging back and forth along the length of the allied host, checking the state of the companies and reminding the nobles of their responsibilities. It was a routine born of long habit, forged in the jungle campaigns south of Rasetra, and it had served the king well in the past.

  They were nearly at the centre of the slowly marching column, passing alongside what was left of the baggage train and the huge wagons of the Lybaran court. Priests paced alongside the creaking wagon that held Hekhmenukep, their heads bowed as they prayed for the king’s survival. As Rakh-amn-hotep’s chariot rumbled past, one of the holy men straightened and beckoned to the king, nearly stepping out into the chariot’s path.

  Rakh-amn-hotep stifled a disapproving frown and touched the chariot driver on the shoulder, signalling him to stop. The weary horses needed little encouragement, their heads drooping as they snuffled about in the dust in search of something that might contain a few drops of moisture.

  The Rasetran king squinted in the darkness at the approaching priest.

  “Nebunefer?” he said, recognising the envoy from Mahrak. “Since when did you become a healer?”

  “One doesn’t need the gift of healing to pray for the health of a great king,” the old priest said stiffly. His voice was rough and leathery, and his haggard face seemed even more careworn and stern after the privations of the long retreat, but the gleam in his dark eyes was as indomitable as ever.

  The Rasetran king nodded grudgingly and kept his doubts to himself. Nebunefer had kept to the army’s contingent of priests since their departure from Quatar, but Rakh-amn-hotep had little doubt that the old schemer was still somehow in close contact with the members of the Hieratic Council back in Mahrak and his spies scattered across Nehekhara.

  “How is Hekhmenukep doing?” he asked.

  “His condition is grave,” the old priest replied. “His servants fear that an infection has settled into his lungs.” Nebunefer folded his arms and stared up at the king. “The king needs the services of a temple, and very soon, or I fear he will not survive.” Rakh-amn-hotep gestured to the east.

  “Quatar is almost in sight,” he replied. “We should reach its gates early tomorrow night.” Nebunefer was unmoved.

  “Tomorrow night may well be too late, great one. If the city is so close, we should press on. We could be in Quatar before noon.” The Rasetran king bristled at the note of command in the priest’s voice.

  “The men are exhausted,” he growled. “If we keep them going past dawn, into the full heat of the day, we could lose many of them. Are the lives of a few hundred warriors worth the life of a king?” Nebunefer raised a thin eyebrow.

  “I’m surprised you would ask such a question, great one.” Rakh-amn-hotep let out a snort.

  “Right now I need spearmen and cavalrymen, not kings,” he said.

  “But the king isn’t just one man, as you well know,” Nebunefer countered. “He represents his fighting men as well. If Hekhmenukep dies, there is no guarantee that the Lybaran host won’t take his body home and leave you to fight Nagash alone.”

  The old schemer had a point, Rakh-amn-hotep admitted sourly. He turned and stared off to the east for a moment, trying to gauge the remaining distance to Quatar. He knew that another contingent of horsemen was due back from the river sometime near dawn. It might be enough.

  “We’ll see how things stand as we get closer to dawn,” the king said at last. “If the men are able, we’ll move on. Otherwise, you may have another day of praying to do.”

  For a moment it seemed that Nebunefer would continue the argument, but after catching the hard look in the Rasetran’s eye, he merely bowed to the king and went off to catch up with Hekhmenukep’s wagon.

  Rakh-amn-hotep watched him go, and then tapped his driver’s shoulder.

  “Turn us around,” he growled. “Let’s get back to the head of the column.”

  The driver nodded and popped the reins, chiding the horses back into motion. They turned in a bouncing arc eastwards and rejoined the trade road once more. Rakh-amn-hotep paid little attention to the trudging men as the chariot rumbled down the column, his mind preoccupied with weighing the risk of a forced march against the very real possibility of losing Hekhmenukep and the Lybarans in the process.

  He hoped the night didn’t have any other surprises in store.

  When Arkhan received the summons he was more than three miles to the east, prowling along the trade road with a squadron of Numasi horsemen and nipping at the heels of the retreating enemy army. The cloud of locusts that swept down upon the immortal out of the darkness had spooked the still-living Numasi and their horses. Arkhan glared contemptuously at his erstwhile allies as the insects hissed and spun round his head.

  “Return to my tent, favoured servant,” Arkhan heard in the rustle of chitin and the buzz of papery wings. “The time of retribution is nigh.”

  Arkhan turned command of the squadron over to its Numasi captain, ordering them to close and engage the enemy rearguard throughout the night. Then he turned, wheeled his undead horse around and raced off into the darkness.

  The army of the Undying King was arrayed in a crescent formation that stretched for more than three miles from tip to tip, its outstretched arms reaching hungrily for the fleeing enemy host. Most of the warriors in the front lines were long dead, their flesh turned leathery by the desert air and their corpses home to burrowing scarabs and black desert scorpions. They advanced slowly and stolidly after their foes. When the king and his immortals halted the army at dawn they stood in ordered ranks, baking in the heat, until the time to march came once again.

  By contrast, the remainder of the host, less than a third of Khemri’s city levies and what was left of the allied armies of Numas and Zandri, followed a few miles behind the vanguard along the trade road, their heads bowed with hunger and fear. The living trembled at the sight of the walking dead, furtively making signs to ward off evil when they believed none of Nagash’s immortals were looking. The Undying King drove them without mercy. Wounds were not tended, nor were they fed more than a meagre ration of water and grain each day. Nagash cared little about the condition of their flesh, for when the time came his warriors would fight, one way or the other.

  The companies of living warriors averted their eyes and clutched their spears with trembling hands as Arkhan raced past. He came upon his master’s pavilion near the rear of the column, arrayed on a level patch of sand a few hundred yards from the road. Other tents had been pitched nearby, and Arkhan saw many of the army’s engineers labouring at a frantic pace under the stern gaze of several of the king’s immortals. He had heard rumours of Nagash’s new battlefield innovations, and presumed that they were being made in anticipation of the coming fight at Quatar.

  More than a score of undead mounts w
aited outside the master’s tent as Arkhan approached, and he carefully concealed a frown of disapproval. Since rejoining the army a few weeks past, he’d taken pains to avoid his fellow immortals. The years of solitude in his black tower had left him impatient and mistrustful of the company of others, particularly of his own kind. Steeling himself, he slid from the saddle and entered his master’s tent without a passing glance at the slaves cowering outside.

  The tent’s main chamber was crowded with kneeling figures, all waiting upon the king. Arkhan spied Raamket, garbed in a fresh cloak of flayed human hide, and the bandaged figure of Shepsu-hur. The immortals studied Arkhan with the flat, hungry stare of a pack of jackals, and he bared his broken teeth in return.

  Nagash, the Undying King, sat upon Khemri’s ancient throne at the rear of the chamber, flanked by his uneasy allies. Arkhan could see at once that the campaign had left its mark on the three kings. Amn-nasir, the Priest King of Zandri, was nearly catatonic, his eyes glazed and his expression slack under the effects of the black lotus. Seheb and Nuneb, the twin Kings of Numas, had kept their wits so far, but both of the young men were anxious and uncharacteristically withdrawn. One of them, Arkhan couldn’t tell which, kept biting at his nails when he thought no one was looking. The immortal could smell the blood on the king’s fingertips from across the chamber.

  The vizier marched past the kneeling immortals and sank to his knees directly at Nagash’s feet. He could hear the faint moans of the necromancer’s ghostly retinue swirling above his head.

  “What is your command, master?” he asked.

  Nagash straightened upon the throne.

  “We draw close to Quatar,” the Undying King declared, “and the time has come for the craven King of the White City to pay for his surrender at the Gates of the Dawn.” The necromancer stretched out his hand. “I shall send you forth with these immortals to Quatar’s great necropolis, and there you will raise up an army of vengeance to take the city from our foes. When the rebel kings of the east reach Quatar’s walls, you will be there to bar their path and seal their doom.”