by Nathan Long
‘Who, then?’ asked Ulrika.
‘Karl Franz,’ said Famke. ‘The Emperor is coming to Nuln, and the Sylvanians mean to assassinate him when he arrives.’
chapter two
LAHMIA BARES HER CLAWS
Ulrika stared at Famke. ‘The Emperor? They are going to kill him? Are – are you certain?’
Famke shrugged. ‘Our mistresses seem so.’
Ulrika sat down on the cot, stunned. ‘When Stefan… when I was told the Sylvanians meant to make an empire, I thought they only meant to steal ours, not…’
Famke sat beside her. ‘It is the Empire of men they wish to take,’ she said. ‘Countess Gabriella says they will use the Lahmians as scapegoats. While the humans tear each other apart looking for the secret vampires in their midst, they will attack from without. An army of the dead.’
‘Madness!’ said Ulrika. ‘This cannot happen. Something must be done!’
‘We are doing it,’ said Famke. ‘That is, the sisterhood is. All the Lahmians who have survived the witch hunts and exposures have been gathering here in Nuln to fight the enemy and stop the assassination. It will be war.’
‘Sister,’ said the dark-haired Lahmian from the door. ‘Are you certain you should be telling her this?’
Famke turned on her, cross. ‘Of course I am. It’s only Ulrika. Go back to your post, Astrid. I will see to her now.’
The Lahmian hesitated, then curtseyed and disappeared down the hall.
Ulrika hardly noticed her going. She was burning with a sudden excitement. ‘War! Yes! This is why I returned. We must strike back! Where is the countess? Take me to her.’
Famke hesitated. ‘They – they are still angry with you, sister,’ she said. ‘The countess has called you oathbreaker, and my mistress has called for your head.’
‘And I deserve their anger,’ said Ulrika. ‘I… I was foolish. But I will renew my vow to them, and I will prove my loyalty in battle. They can’t turn away a willing soldier, can they?’
‘I hope not,’ said Famke, and took her hand. ‘Come, they are in council. I will take you there.’
Ulrika staggered as she stood, then paused. ‘I’m sorry, Famke, would it be possible to feed before we go? It has been days since–’
Famke gasped, embarrassed. ‘Forgive me, sister! It is the first thing I should have offered. This way. My maid and I have been passing the time in Countess Gabriella’s library.’
After feeding from the maid, Ulrika followed Famke down a hidden stairway that descended through the storeys of the house, then continued far underground. It seemed to Ulrika that they were winding down not just through the earth, but through time as well. The composition of the walls changed the deeper they went, from wood to brick to stone, and more primitive with each turn of the stair, until, at the base, where the echo of dripping water filled Ulrika’s ears and the reek of mildew filled her nose, the steps seemed to have been carved not by pick and chisel, but by claw and tooth. Faint traces of crude symbols covered the tunnel walls, and a cold wind moaned through them that spoke of deeper reaches below.
‘How do the Lahmians know so much of the Sylvanians’ plans?’ Ulrika asked as she followed Famke along a curving passage. ‘Have they captured a spy? Have they intercepted some notes?’
Famke shook her head. ‘Not that I know of, though I am not told everything. I think it is more a guess – many small things that lead to only one conclusion. Behind every Lahmian exposure, the mistresses have found Sylvanian whispers, and Countess Gabriella believes them behind Karl Franz’s decision to leave Altdorf for Nuln as well. Our spies in Sylvania report an undead army massing on the border, and there have been mysterious troops sighted in the vicinity of Nuln too, moving only at night.’ She looked at Ulrika. ‘Some sisters disagree, but most believe these things point to an attack on Karl Franz in Nuln, followed by a full-scale invasion from Sylvania during the confusion that is sure to follow.’
As Ulrika nodded, pondering, she heard the muffled clamour of raised voices ahead of them, and after a bend in the tunnel they came to a pair of heavy wooden doors, thrown wide, and beyond them, a crudely cut, torchlit chamber with still larger doors on its far wall. At the first doors stood two female vampires in red robes over inlayed black armour. They had bare blades in their hands and went on guard at Famke and Ulrika’s approach.
‘Announce yourselves, sisters,’ said the one on the left.
Ulrika instinctively put her hand to her rapier, then realised it was still in the cloakroom next to the brothel’s front door. She grunted with annoyance. She felt naked without it.
Famke curtseyed. ‘Sisters, we are Famke, ward of Lady Hermione of Nuln, and Ulrika, ward of Countess Gabriella von Nachthafen, and bear news for our mistresses.’
The women stepped aside and motioned for Famke and Ulrika to enter. The antechamber beyond them was full of bodyguards and retainers, both vampire and human, all sitting on wooden benches in attitudes of wary boredom. Ulrika’s eyes widened to see them all. There were fighting men in a dozen different liveries, and representing not just the Empire, but Bretonnia, Estalia and Tilea as well, and nearly as many women, some dressed as ladies in waiting, some as novices of one of the cloistered orders, some booted and spurred like Ulrika, but all of them Lahmians.
‘How many mistresses have gathered here?’ murmured Ulrika, staring around.
‘More than a hundred,’ said Famke.
Ulrika blinked. She had not thought there were so many vampires in the whole world.
A tall, grey-robed woman inclined her head to them as they approached the inner doors.
‘Sisters,’ she said in a dry voice.
‘We have news for our mistresses,’ said Famke. ‘Word from Kislev.’
Ulrika smiled uneasily at that. Really, the only news was that she had returned. The Lahmians already seemed to know everything else.
The woman bowed and pulled open one of the doors.
A gust of angry debate poured through the gap as Famke and Ulrika slipped through, and continued to rise as the door closed quietly behind them. Scores of voices all spoke at once, and the echoing din sounded like the bickering of crows.
Ulrika shuddered as Famke took her hand and led her left around the shadowed outer ring of the massive chamber. The thousands of skulls that looked down from the high arched roof left no doubt what its original purpose had been, nor did the descending tiers that ringed a blood-blackened altar in its centre, nor the crude iron-barred cages set into the outer walls. This had been a place of sacrifice, though to what god or daemon, Ulrika could not tell, for all the statues that had lined the walls had been recently smashed to pieces.
‘Did the sisterhood know these catacombs existed when they bought the house?’ Ulrika whispered as she followed Famke.
‘It was the reason they chose it,’ said Famke, ‘though the seller knew nothing of it.’ She looked around at the altar and the symbol-scratched pillars. ‘We are not the first to shed blood in these halls, that is certain.’
Ulrika grimaced – recalling the blood-soaked rituals of the Chaos cultists she had fought in Praag – then did her best to shake off her unease. Whatever it had been before, it was now a parliament – a raucous council of the queens of the night, and Famke was right, there were certainly more than a hundred Lahmians filling the stone benches.
But though the number was surprising, it was the mad variety of forms they took that made Ulrika’s head swim. In her limited experience, she had known her sisters to appear both young and old, comely and coarse, serene and savage, but they had all looked human – at least most of the time. Here, however, though there were plenty of the expected proud beauties and regal noblewomen among the assembled, there were some who seemed to have turned their backs on every convention of civilised dress and manner, and still others who had abandoned their humanity altogether.
A woman
the size of an ogre sat in the first row, entirely naked, with a blood-stiffened top-knot sticking straight up from her shaved head and swirling smears of gore decorating her bulging breasts and belly. A graceful, black-skinned sylph with folded bat-wing arms perched on a broken pillar behind the last row and watched the proceedings with darting red eyes. A withered corpse in bridal clothes from Sigmar’s time lay unmoving in an ancient coffin on the floor. Ulrika would have thought her truly dead but for the naked slave who knelt, chained, beside the box, trembling as bloody words were carved into her back by a floating stiletto while a second slave read them aloud, then waited while the wounds healed and new words were written over the first. A girl of no more than eight years sat on the back of a huge, eyeless and earless slave. Her auburn hair reached the floor. A figure so strange Ulrika did not even know if it was alive paced the upper tier. It might have been a woman encased entirely in delicate gold armour, or just as easily, it might have been an intricate golden automaton. Ulrika could see no flesh between the joins, nor eyes behind the lapis lazuli buttons that decorated the front of its helm. The mouth was like that of a ventriloquist’s manikin – a hinged, clacking thing with fangs of ivory behind ruby-red lips made of actual rubies.
But these strange individuals were only the most unusual among the arguing crowd. Even without them, Ulrika’s understanding of the spectrum of Lahmian society broadened with each turn of her head. There were warlike Lahmians in polished breastplates, and scholarly Lahmians in the black robes of necromancers. There were bestial Lahmians who looked as much like wolf-kin as women, and cloaked and veiled Lahmians who sat nested in webs of shadow. There were Lahmians who wore the robes and headdresses of priestesses of ancient Nehekhara, and others in furs and skins who would not have looked out of place riding with Kurgan marauders.
And in the middle of it all Ulrika at last spotted the Lahmians of Nuln, Countess Gabriella, Lady Hermione and Madam Mathilda. Gabriella and Hermione were dressed as usual as wealthy, respectable noblewomen – in powder-blue, and burgundy respectively – while Mathilda, as ever, wore black and looked like she had just crawled from her bed after an entertaining night. Hermione stood upon the blood-rusted altar, her eyes blazing and her pretty, pouty face screwed up with rage as she tried to shout the gathering to order. Gabriella and Mathilda sat side by side in the front row, watching and listening in alert silence.
Seeing Gabriella, Ulrika’s chest tightened with emotion, and she had the urge to run straight to her. She didn’t fancy elbowing through the middle of the circle to get to her, however, so instead she let Famke continue to lead her the long way around.
‘We can go no further until we root out the traitors in our midst!’ Hermione was shouting.
‘And who will do this rooting?’ asked a grave-pale crone in a high collar. ‘You? Did not four of your sisters die here? How do we know it was not you who sent them to the slaughter?’
‘A council must be appointed!’ said a beauty in a plain white shift. ‘We must have a vote!’
‘The sisterhood is a hierarchy!’ shouted the slave of the woman in the coffin, reading off the back of the slate slave. ‘The most senior should rule!’
‘Voting is for the weak,’ snarled the ogrish woman. ‘And the old ones are senile! Let us fight it out!’
‘Very well, Yusila,’ said a breastplated woman at the back, rising and glaring at her with a hand on her sword. She had an Estalian accent and looked like a heroine out of legend, with a proud, noble face and flowing brunette locks. ‘Let us. I would be happy to rid us of your vileness at last.’
The fat woman stood and shook fists like cannonballs while the rest of her jiggled and bounced. ‘Try it, Casilla, I’ll fold your armour up with you inside it, you jumped-up camp follower!’
Casilla’s companions, four other martial-looking women, shot to their feet at this and began hurling abuse at the big woman, which started others rising to shout them down, and still more to shout down the others.
‘Ursun’s teeth,’ whispered Ulrika as she and Famke reached the far side of the circle and started down the tiers towards Gabriella. ‘How long has it been going on like this?’
‘For three weeks,’ said Famke. ‘Every time more of them arrive, the whole thing starts again.’
Ulrika shook her head. It was like the wrangling that had gone on between Hermione and Gabriella and the rest of the sisters of Nuln during the murders, only magnified ten-fold. Perhaps that was why there were so few Lahmians in each city – too many in one place and they would kill each other.
Casilla and her swordswomen were down in the centre now, nose to nose – or rather nose to belly – with the giant vampiress, as a score of voices called for them to fight or sit down or take it outside, while Hermione hectored everyone from the altar. The dagger-writing of the woman in the casket was so emphatic that she was cutting her slate slave to the bone.
Then, as it seemed the assembly would collapse into utter anarchy, a blinding flash of moon-white light exploded directly above the altar, rocking the room with a deafening thunderclap and throwing Hermione to the floor. The Lahmians shielded their eyes and dropped into guard, turning in wary circles with claws and blades bared.
Into this wire-taut silence came the soft steps of sandal-shod feet. All heads turned at the sound, and watched in stunned silence as, out of the shadows near the main door, a slim, dark-skinned woman paced forwards with the solemn poise of a hunting cat. Beaded black hair was drawn back from her angular face and hung down between her shoulders in a heavy queue. She wore high, laced sandals, a royal purple chlamys pinned with a golden brooch at one shoulder, thick circlets of amber at neck and wrist, and nothing else.
Two towering women in bronze helms and breastplates and long, brigandined skirts followed her at a respectful distance. They had the pale eyes and powerful physiques of Norse shield-maidens and carried tall spears with glinting blades as long as Ulrika’s arm.
The spearwoman at the dark woman’s right stepped forwards and grounded her weapon as the Lahmians continued to stare. ‘All bow to Lashmiya of Mahrak, ruler of the Serpent Coast and emissary of the Queen of the Silver Pinnacle, the everlasting goddess of night and blood, Neferata of Nehekhara.’
The vainglorious introduction seemed unnecessary to Ulrika, for the Lahmians appeared to have known instantly who the woman was and, as they recovered from their shock, all bowed and curtseyed to her with nervous fervour.
Lashmiya and her bodyguards walked down the ring of steps to the centre of the room without looking right or left, while Hermione, still sprawled on the altar, staggered up and curtseyed convulsively, then stepped down and motioned for Lashmiya to take her place.
The emissary showed no sign she had seen her. She stepped up onto the bloodstained stones and turned to look at the silent assembly of women with heavy-lidded eyes as her Norse spearwomen came to attention below her. Closer now, Ulrika could see that she was of the Southlands, with full lips and a broad, flat nose – and was as beautiful and terrifying as a tiger.
‘Your Queen has heard your pleas for help in your hour of need,’ said Lashmiya in velvet-burred Reikspiel, ‘and sends you aid and comfort.’
A murmur of thanks rose from the benches.
Lashmiya talked over it. ‘She has heard that the Sylvanians have torn you apart and driven stakes through your hearts, that they have thrown open your secret places and exposed you to the murdering sun.’
There were more murmurs of agreement at this, but the emissary went on, a sneer curling her lush lips.
‘How disappointed she will be when I am forced to tell her that it was you who tore each other apart, you who drove stakes through each others’ hearts, and you who exposed each other to the sun.’
The Lahmians hissed and grumbled. Some of them stepped forwards, angry.
‘Mistress,’ said Hermione, curtseying again. ‘We do not turn on each other without cause.
There are traitors among us. How can we proceed until we flush them out? Our every move will be known by the enemy!’
Lashmiya raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you concerned with traitors, or with rivals?’ She nodded towards the door. ‘I have listened here for over an hour, concealed in shadow, and have found it amusing how often those accused of treachery just happen to be in the way of the accusers’ advancement.’
The room went silent as the women realised they had been spied upon, then a great tide of protest rose, as each tried to defend her actions and denigrate the others. Ulrika blinked. Lashmiya and her guards had been there the whole time? Had she and Famke walked past them when they entered the room? That she had sensed nothing was no surprise. Her witch sight was little better than a human’s, but that none of the Lahmian sorceresses and necromancers in the room had sensed her either said much of Lashmiya’s power.
The emissary cut off the babble with a gesture. ‘Enough. This is nonsense. You are Lahmians. You know how to deal with spies. You feed them lies and turn them on their masters. What you do not know how to do – what you have forgotten – is how to unite in a time of crisis.’ She sighed. ‘Our gracious Queen humbly acknowledges the fault is her own. In these centuries since Sylvania’s last rising, she has let her daughters grow complacent. She has let them practice their intrigues upon each other, trusting that the fittest would rise, but in the process, she has allowed them to forget who the real enemy is.’
More murmured denials rose at this but Lashmiya raised her voice over them.
‘That will end here,’ she said. ‘We will not let petty family squabbles be the end of us. We will unite and triumph as we did three hundred years ago.’
The Lahmians applauded this gravely, and some called out, ‘For the Queen! For Lahmia!’
But as the cheers faded, the crone in the high collar stepped forwards, inclining her head respectfully. ‘Thank you for reminding us of our duty, mistress, and let me be the first to pledge to this new unity. But it does not change the truth that the traitors do exist, and must still be expunged.’ She turned on Countess Gabriella, snarling. ‘I know for a fact that this half-Sylvanian, the mother of the vile Krieger, has–’