by Mike Lee
It was the beginning of the end. Nehekhara was blessed no more.
Rakh-amn-hotep and Hekhmenukep also felt the breaking of the covenant, and knew what it portended. Their Ushabti cried out in horror, tearing at their beards and beating their breasts in vain as their god-given powers began to fade.
The kings guessed what the terrible change portended, but neither man said a word. Their warriors were still advancing, mere minutes away from clashing with the Usurper’s undead horde.
It was the end of all things. All that remained was to fight until the darkness overwhelmed them.
A cheer went up from Nagash’s immortals as the bone giants reached the gates of the city to the north-east. The siege was over, and the final victory was at hand.
Across the killing ground in front of the undead battleline, squadrons of swift Numasi horsemen were falling back before the advance of the eastern armies. A solid wall of Lybaran and Rasetran spearmen more than two miles long drove the enemy cavalry back through their own encampment and towards their own lines. When the advancing spearmen were fifty yards from the waiting skeletons, the twin kings signalled their men and the Numasi broke into a full retreat, falling swiftly back through narrow lanes between the undead infantry, and forming up to the army’s rear.
As soon as the Numasi were out of the way, companies of undead archers stepped forwards and raised their black bows. Clouds of reed shafts darkened the skies over the killing ground, and the final battle was joined.
To the north, the Zandri encampment was a scene of pandemonium. Men fell to their knees and begged the gods for forgiveness, or shook their fists and shouted curses at the bone giants and skeletons assaulting Mahrak’s walls. The ponderous blows of the giants echoed across the plain as they battered down the city gates.
Consumed with grief and rage, many of the Zandri fighting men turned on Arkhan with fists and knives as he tried to fight his way to the king’s tent. Snarling with rage, he ignored their feeble blows and hurled the fools out of his path. Once or twice an arrow hissed past, but the vizier paid them no mind.
Another fight seemed to be brewing outside Amn-nasir’s tent. Messengers from Nagash’s captains were arguing furiously with the Zandri king’s attendants and bodyguards, who were half-mad with anger. The vizier noticed a dozen silk-dad Lahmian retainers standing apart from the raging dispute. They eyed Arkhan warily as he shoved through the press and plunged through the tent entrance.
Amn-nasir and Lamashizzar stood in the main chamber, surrounded by a dozen stricken-looking Ushabti. The bodyguards turned on Arkhan at once, drawing their terrible blades, but both kings swiftly intervened.
As the Ushabti withdrew, Amn-nasir bowed his head gratefully to Arkhan. Lamashizzar regarded the immortal inscrutably. Arkhan sensed that he had interrupted another heated debate.
“Have you made your decision?” Amn-nasir asked. Arkhan turned to the King of Lahmia.
“You offered the might of your army in return for the gift of eternal life,” the immortal said. “The Undying King will never reveal the secrets of his elixir to you, but I can.”
With a splintering crash, the gates of the city crashed inwards. As one, the surviving skeletons outside Mahrak’s walls surged forwards, spilling clumsily through the opening as the giants turned their attention to climbing over the sandstone battlements.
Beyond the broken gates lay an open square, where the resolute figures of six hundred holy warriors stood. Mahrak’s Ushabti commended their souls to gods that no longer heard their prayers, and rushed forwards to fight and die according to their vows. They struck the skeletal horde like a ravening wind, shattering the undead attackers by the hundreds. When the bone giants swung over the city walls the Ushabti hacked at their massive legs until one by one they collapsed to the ground.
The defenders of the city fought like heroes of legend, but their strength ebbed with every blow and more and more of the enemy spears found their marks. One by one, the great Ushabti fell, crushed by giant hands or bled dry by scores of terrible wounds. Slowly but surely the survivors were driven back from the gates by the relentless press of skeletal bodies. Nagash guided his warriors expertly, using alleys and side streets to isolate and surround the defenders, before burying them beneath a tide of metal and bone.
By the time the last Ushabti fell, all three giants and nearly fifteen thousand skeletons had fallen before their flashing blades, a last, doomed gesture of faith and honour in the face of all-consuming night.
Heedless of fallen heroes or forsaken gods, the thousands of remaining skeletons marched on the city temples. Nagash, surrounded by his Tomb Guard, made his way towards the Palace of the Gods.
Screaming skulls traced glowing arcs of sorcerous fire over the battlefield as the armies of east and west tore at one another with spear, axe and sword. The warriors of Rasetra and Lybaras fought like devils, carving deep into the ranks of the undead, but their companies were sorely outnumbered. The allied kings had committed every company available into the battleline, and still the enemy troops were lapping inexorably around the companies fighting along the flanks. Slowly but surely, the undead army pressed forwards, dosing around the allied troops like the jaws of a crocodile.
Sensing that they had the upper hand, the immortals sent half their number and their cavalry escorts galloping off to the right flank. The Numasi kings watched them go, and realised that the pivotal moment was at hand. Once the cavalry swept around the allied flank, the fate of the army was sealed.
Seheb and Nuneb took up their reins and waved to their captains. Without any fanfare the cavalry squadrons began to move, edging towards the army’s right flank. As the immortals and their light horsemen crossed in front of the advancing Numasi cavalry, the twins sent another signal. Blades flashed from their scabbards, and the squadrons increased their speed to a canter.
Pale heads turned at the approach of the Numasi horsemen. The immortals grinned like jackals, raising their weapons in salute.
Seheb and Nuneb grinned back, returning the salute. Then their swords swept down in a vicious arc.
“Charge!” the twins cried, and their kinsmen replied with a bloodcurdling roar and the flare of trumpets.
The Numasi cavalry took the immortals and their horsemen in the flank, isolating the undead squadrons and smashing the warriors to the ground. For a few, crucial moments the immortals were caught off-guard by the sudden reversal, and their surprise was reflected by the lack of resistance by their warriors. The skeletons were reaped like wheat by the veteran horsemen, and the pale-skinned captains soon found themselves beset by dozens of flickering blades.
Snarling in fear and rage, the thirty immortals tried to hack their way free of the press and rejoin their comrades, who watched the battle helplessly more than a mile away. Little more than a handful succeeded.
On the opposite side of the battlefield, Ekhreb and the waiting allied cavalry stirred at the sound of the Numasi trumpets.
“That’s the signal,” the champion told his lieutenants. “Let’s go.”
Ekhreb was still somewhat in shock over the Numasi kings’ surprising offer of parley. He had been on the verge of ordering the allied vanguard to charge the enemy horsemen when the twin rulers suddenly lowered their weapons and rode forwards under a sign of truce. They told the Rasetran champion that they had seen enough horrors in service to Nagash, and had repudiated their oaths to serve him. The whole army was ready to switch sides, if the eastern kings would have them.
The trouble was that there was no time for discussions. The armies were on the move, and even with the support of the Numasi horsemen, the advantage of surprise was fast slipping away. Ekhreb had to decide whether the twin kings could be trusted. One look into their haunted eyes was enough to convince the scarred champion. He knew what they were feeling all too well.
The allied cavalry rode westwards along a shallow gully pointed out to them by the Numasi horsemen. It concealed their movement for more than a mile, emptying the squa
drons out on the enemy army’s far right flank. The skeletons had already advanced well forwards, sweeping inexorably around the flank of the smaller eastern army. That left their rear ranks exposed to the sudden appearance of the allied cavalry.
The Numasi were moving further east, sowing confusion along the rear of the enemy battleline. Seheb and Nuneb had been as good as their word. With a fierce grin, Ekhreb raised his heavy sword.
“For Rasetra! For Lybaras! For the glory of the gods! Charge!” he commanded.
With a wild roar the allied cavalry thundered forwards, their swords glimmering balefully in the gloom. The undead spearmen, focused on the enemy infantry in front of them with mindless zeal, did not realise their peril until it was far too late.
Nagash found himself at the edge of the great plaza that stretched before the Palace of the Gods when he heard the faint clamour of trumpets to the south-west and the exultant roar of thousands of living men. He paused, just as he was about to give the order for his Tomb Guard to storm the palace of the decadent priests, and focused his attention through the eyes of various undead champions in his host. What he saw brought a stream of blasphemous curses to his lips.
The Numasi had betrayed him! Already they had killed half of his immortals or put them to flight, and were bearing down hard upon the rest. The right flank of his vast army had been hit by a surprise charge of enemy cavalry and wavered on the brink of collapse. So far, his army’s centre and left flanks were holding, but with his captains under direct attack they could not guide his mindless companies effectively.
Pure, venomous fury welled up within the necromancer. How he had longed to burst open the doors of the Palace of the Gods and watch those fools on the Hieratic Council come crawling on their bellies, pleading with him to spare their worthless lives. Now he was to be cheated of his rightful reward, a mere hundred yards from his goal!
There were, however, more pressing matters at hand than simple entertainment. His reserves were out of position, rampaging through Mahrak’s streets and wrecking the city’s temples. He would have to assume command of the companies on the battleline and then extricate his warriors from the city immediately. With their added numbers he would have more than enough troops to stop the attack on the right flank and regain the initiative against the enemy. First, however, he needed to restore his battered forces to full strength.
Drawing upon the power of the Black Pyramid, Nagash began the Incantation of Summoning. Across the city, Mahrak’s dead citizens began to stir.
Out on the charnel plain, the right flank of Nagash’s army rallied briefly under the lash of the necromancer’s will, but pressure from Ekhreb’s cavalry and the Rasetran spearmen drove the skeletal companies back. The surviving immortals, freed from the strain of fighting and simultaneously directing the huge host, drove the Numasi horsemen off to the west and kept the allied troops from completely turning the right flank. Nagash’s troops were effectively cut off from their camp, and slowly but surely they were being driven back against Mahrak’s implacable walls.
The immortals stared furiously off to the north, wondering where the Zandri army was. Nearly a dozen messengers had been sent demanding their support, but none of the riders had returned.
In the swirling chaos of battle, the immortals failed to notice that the army’s catapults had fallen silent, nor could they see the smoke rising from their tents in the sorcerous gloom.
While the warriors of Zandri were overrunning Nagash’s encampment, Lamashizzar’s troops formed up and advanced southwards, closing in on the necromancer’s forces from the north. The warriors had furled their brilliant yellow banners and smudged their faces with ash, concealing them somewhat under the pall of shadow covering the city. They had reached to within a hundred yards of the enemy’s struggling right flank just as Nagash’s first mob of reinforcements came stumbling through Mahrak’s shattered gate.
Observing his army’s progress from the back of a coal-black mare, Lamashizzar ordered his companies of dragon-men forwards.
Nagash hurled Mahrak’s dead headlong at the advancing enemy troops, seeking to bog down their advance under the weight of thousands of shambling bodies. The wasted corpses of men, women and children stumbled through the gate and threw themselves upon the eastern spears, while the Undying King marshalled his skeletal companies inside the city and sent them back out through the gate in good order.
The king came last, leading his Tomb Guard. His immortals took heart at the sight of the Undying King, and redoubled the efforts of the companies on the centre and left. The battle had been raging for more than two hours, and the eastern troops were weakening steadily. Nagash gathered his reserves on the right and prepared for a counter-assault. Controlling such a huge force and maintaining the mantle of shadows overhead was fast draining his magical reserves, leaving him little in the way of power to devote to destructive spells. That would come later, once he’d hurled back the enemy assault and regained the offensive.
Then the king noticed the black-armoured troops advancing slowly from the north, nearly perpendicular to Mahrak’s western wall.
The damned Lahmians! Either they had put the men of Zandri to flight, or else Amn-nasir’s men had turned traitor like the cowardly Numasi. Regardless, the necromancer knew that they had to be dealt with immediately, or else they would leave his army with no room left to manoeuvre. They would be trapped against the walls of the city and ground to pieces by forces advancing on three sides.
Nagash shifted the army’s reserve companies to the north, anchored in the centre by his elite Tomb Guard. With another set of unspoken commands he returned control of the main army to his immortals, and then headed north in the wake of his bodyguards. The Undying King drew on the last of his dwindling reserves and began to chant a fearsome incantation.
At Lamashizzar’s command, four companies of dragon-men rushed out in front of the set ranks of the spear companies and formed into tightly packed blocks, four ranks deep. The front rank of each company dropped to one knee, allowing the rank behind to rest their dragon-staves on the shoulders of the men in front.
Five companies of skeletal warriors advanced upon the dragon-men in a thunderous rattle of wood, metal and bone. It was a fearsome sight to behold, but the dragon-men were the elite of the Lahmian army, hand-picked for their intelligence and strength of will. Few people had the nerve to handle the deadly and unpredictable dragon powder made by the alchemists of the far east.
The skeletons approached in tight formation, advancing implacably upon the Lahmian lines. As they approached, the dragon-men drew lengths of smouldering cotton rope from bottles at their waists. They blew steadily upon the wicks to keep the burning ends lit as the distance to the enemy dwindled. Two of the four companies aimed the mouths of their dragon-staves at the centre of the enemy line. The white shields of the troops in the middle made for excellent targets in the faint light.
At fifty yards, Lamashizzar ordered the dragon-men into action. Each warrior touched his burning wick to a tiny hole drilled in the side of his stave. Two thousand dragons spat tongues of fire, and sent balls of lead the size of sling stones crashing through the enemy ranks in a wash of brimstone and an ear-splitting crescendo of man-made thunder.
The sound was appalling. Nagash had never heard the like. It was followed by a terrible, rending clatter as a hail of invisible projectiles tore through the dense formations of his troops. Shields splintered, and limbs and torsos exploded in a shower of fragments. The terrible hail ripped through the companies from front to back, buzzing malevolently through the air like river hornets. A fearsome impact struck the king in the left shoulder, punching like a fist through cloth, muscle and bone. The words of his incantation were swept away in a furious tide of searing pain. Nagash staggered, his right hand rising to his shoulder and coming away slick with viscous blood. A hole the size of his thumb had been punched through his robe and vestments, and the cloth surrounding it was soaking with gore.
For a moment the nec
romancer’s view was obscured by a pall of stinking black smoke. When it cleared, he was stunned to see the extent of the damage wrought by the Lahmian attack. His Tomb Guard had suffered the worst, nearly three-quarters of the heavy company having been blown apart. Nearly a third of his remaining companies had also been destroyed. The survivors were still moving doggedly forwards, but the enemy companies were moving, shifting so that their front two ranks traded places with those behind them, and more of the terrible staves were being brought to bear on his warriors.
Trumpets sounded in the north-east. Nagash could hear a rumble of hooves, and knew that the Lahmians had committed their cavalry. The black-armoured horsemen charged past their spear companies on the Lahmian right flank and slashed through the risen corpses of Mahrak, scattering the last of Nagash’s reinforcements and sealing his army’s doom.
Ahead of the king his skeletons had almost reached the front ranks of the Lahmian fire-throwers, but the enemy had readied their second volley. Furious, Nagash struggled to force the pain aside and summon forth his power, but even as he did so, he knew that he would be too late.
Overhead, the mantle of shadow was weakening, admitting thin shafts of bright, golden sunlight. Shouts of terror and dismay went up from the king’s immortals. Nagash, the Undying King of Khemri, roared out a bitter curse as the world before him erupted in blooms of hungry flame.
EPILOGUE
The Casket of Souls
Khemri, the Living City, in the 63rd year of Djaf the Terrible
(-1740 Imperial reckoning)