[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  The king did not point out that such a retreat would spell the doom of the great crusade against the Usurper. Nagash would pursue them eastwards, and from this day forward the armies of the east would be fighting, not for the sake of Nehekhara, but for the survival of their people. The alliance would very likely end, as each king sought to make his own peace with Khemri.

  Rakh-amn-hotep looked out across the Plain of Usirian and felt the tides of the war turning, flowing inexorably from his grasp.

  “Form up your horsemen and chariots,” he told Ekhreb, and pointed off to the south-east. “You’ll lead the advance around the southern edge of the city in case the enemy tries to block our path to the valley. If no one challenges you, ride on to the Gates of the Dawn and seize the fortifications. There are cisterns and storehouses within the walls. We’ll take all we can carry and see if the Lybarans can find a way to collapse the gates behind us. That might buy us another day or two.”

  Ekhreb accepted Rakh-amn-hotep’s orders with a curt nod. After all he had seen during the battle at the fountains and the grim retreat afterwards, the thought of destroying the ancient Gates made no impression on him at all.

  “What about you?” he asked the king. The Rasetran nodded at the chaos spreading across the plain.

  “I’m going down there to rally those damned fools and get them moving,” he said. He held out his hand. “Get going, old friend,” he told his champion. “I’ll see you in the valley beyond the Gates of the Dawn. By then I’ll have figured out a proper punishment for giving me the sharp side of your tongue.” Ekhreb gathered up his reins.

  “You could relieve me of command and send me home,” he offered. “It would be a terrible disappointment, but I imagine I could live with it.”

  “Couldn’t we all,” the king retorted, and the two warriors parted ways, racing to pull their army back from the brink of destruction once again.

  Arkhan awoke in darkness, feeling the stirring of his skeletal warriors like the buzzing of wasps within his brain.

  He was sitting upon the Ivory Throne of Quatar, his pale face and hands stained black with drying blood from the entertainments of the night before. A handful of immortals slept upon the blood-spattered floor around the throne, surrounded by the detritus of their revels. Most of the vizier’s undead brethren had scattered across the city with the coming of the dawn, seeking their own solitary havens to wait out the light of day. It appeared that he was not the only immortal growing ever more solitary and mistrustful as the years went by.

  The vizier experienced a moment of disorientation, like a man wakened suddenly from a dream. He could sense a portion of his makeshift army in action off to the west, probably the bowmen he’d situated along the city wall. Though the undead were extensions of his will, his ability to sense their activities was vague at best despite his growing skill. At the moment the connection was more tenuous still, and with a start he realised that it was midday, and the hateful sun was almost directly overhead.

  The other immortals were beginning to stir, peering warily into the darkness of the throne room. Raamket rose swiftly to his feet, swathed in a fresh kilt and a knee-length coat of soft flesh. Nagash had been very specific as to the fate of Nemuhareb, the Priest King of Quatar, but less so with the rest of the king’s family. The immortal had stripped away the skin of Nemuhareb’s children with care.

  “What is happening?” Raamket hissed. Clothed in human skin and dappled with dried gore, the noble’s voice was thin and fearful as a child’s.

  “The enemy is here,” Arkhan snarled, leaping from the throne. Behind him came a rustle of flesh and the faint drip of blood as the wind of his passing stirred what was left of the Lord of Tombs. At the command of the Undying King, Nemuhareb had been skinned alive, and his hide, with its nerves carefully and magically preserved, had been stretched across a standard pole and painted with necromantic runes using the king’s heart blood. When Nagash’s army eventually marched from Quatar they would carry the flayed skin and tormented soul of Nemuhareb before them as a warning to those who would defy the will of Khemri.

  “The damned eastern kings force-marched their armies the rest of the way to Quatar instead of waiting one more day as Nagash expected,” Arkhan continued, his anger growing by the moment. He cursed himself for a fool.

  After weeks of hounding Akhmen-hotep and the Bronze Host across the Great Desert he’d allowed himself to indulge in too much celebration after his easy conquest of Quatar. Now, instead of Nagash’s army pinning their foes against the city walls and slaughtering them, Arkhan was faced with stopping the eastern armies with the scrapings taken from the city necropolis. The archers and javelin throwers on the walls were the best-armed troops he had, and his immortals were imprisoned inside their own havens for as long as the sun burned overhead.

  The vizier’s blood-smeared hands clenched into impotent fists. Furious, he sent a single, burning command to his undead army.

  At this point there was nothing left for Arkhan to do but kill as many of the easterners as he could.

  The eastern end of the Plain of Usirian had been transformed into a killing ground. Hundreds of dead and dying men littered the rocky field beneath the walls of Quatar, and still the arrows arced through the blazing sky. The survivors of the allied armies’ ill-fated lead companies were in full flight, trampling one another in their haste to escape the rain of death. As they ran, bony hands burst from the loose soil and clutched at their ankles. Men fell screaming as the earth heaved and countless skeletons burst from the ground among the panicked troops and set upon them with jagged teeth and claw-like fingers.

  Those few that survived the jaws of Arkhan’s fearsome trap retreated back to the main body of the eastern host and sent tremors of terror and despair through the ranks. Men wavered, already pushed to the limits of their resolve by the hardships of the long retreat. Officers shouted encouragement and uttered blistering oaths to try to keep their warriors in line, but for a few, desperate moments the allied army teetered on the brink of collapse.

  Then, just as all seemed lost, the sound of war-horns carried through the din and the earth rumbled like a drum under the beat of thousands of hooves as the army’s weary cavalry swept down the column’s right flank and charged once more into the fray. They smashed through part of the shambling horde of skeletons, smashing their bodies to pieces and grinding them under their hooves before swinging to the south and circling around the enemy-held city.

  Though the charge had only stopped part of the enemy attack, it restored some of the army’s lost courage and halted the mindless spread of panic. Moments later Rakh-amn-hotep reached the centre of the army, riding past the frightened companies and galvanising them with his presence. He roared imprecations at the retreating warriors, halting them in their tracks through the sheer, indomitable force of his presence. Oblivious to the arrows hissing through the air around him, he sent the shattered companies marching to the rear of the column and formed a battleline to receive the advancing horde.

  The skeletons attacked in waves, clawing mindlessly at the shields and helms of the exhausted spearmen, but with the king at their back the companies stood their ground and they hurled back one assault after the next. Men in the rear ranks picked up rocks and hurled them at the shambling skeletons, smashing skulls and splitting ribcages.

  After weathering five separate attacks, Rakh-amn-hotep passed a command to his signallers, and the army began to advance. The companies pressed forwards, a step at a time, carving a path through the skeletal horrors and slowly working their way around the perimeter of the city towards the Gates of the Dawn.

  Arrows continued to rain down on the warriors from the walls of Quatar, but the range was great, and few found their mark. Rakh-amn-hotep rolled up and down the length of the advancing army, encouraging them to keep pushing forwards against the tide of bones.

  One hour passed, and then another. Weary beyond reason, the army fought on, passing south of Quatar and then forcing their way
eastwards. The Rasetran king turned his attention to forming a rearguard from the mauled companies at the back of the column, standing with them and holding off what remained of the undead attackers while the rest of the host retreated safely beyond their reach.

  The fire of the archers dwindled steadily as their supply of arrows ran low, and less than two hundred skeletons remained on the sun-baked plain to challenge the retreating host. The ghastly mob made one last attempt against the rearguard, and this time the eastern warriors responded with such fury that not one of the grisly warriors survived.

  Alone and unchallenged upon the field, the rearguard raised their spears and offered praise to the gods and to Rakh-amn-hotep for their victory, but when the warriors turned to salute their king they found his chariot empty. Rakh-amn-hotep lay upon the ground just a few yards away, his chariot driver kneeling at his side. An arrow, one of the very last fired from the city walls, had taken the bold king in the throat.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The City of the Gods

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

  (-1744 Imperial Reckoning)

  So long as he drank his master’s elixir, Arkhan the Black was immortal. Thus, pain applied in just the right way could be made to last a very, very long time.

  The vizier writhed and gurgled in a sticky pool of his own fluids, smothered by a wet, chitinous blanket of tomb beetles. His clothes and most of his skin had long since been eaten away, and the flesh beneath chewed to a pulp as the scarabs worked their way into the tender organs beneath. When he tried to keep screaming, the air whistled tunelessly through the gaping holes in his throat, and all that emerged from his gaping mouth was the rustling, tearing sound of hundreds of pairs of mandibles.

  Nagash sat straight-backed upon the throne of Quatar with the hide of its former ruler stirring at his back. His immortals, as well as the vassal Kings of Numas and Zandri, all waited upon the king as he meted out his displeasure on the vizier. Nagash’s undead champions watched Arkhan’s suffering with wary, subdued expressions. Never before had they been shown the agonies that one of their own kind could be made to endure, and, to a man, they all feared that they could be next. For the kings, however, the horror was even worse. Seheb and Nuneb had collapsed early on, their eyes wide and feverish with shock. Their Ushabti had little choice but to take the twin kings by the arms and hold them bodily upright until Nagash declared the audience to be at an end. Amn-nasir drank and drank from the goblet clutched in his trembling hand, but no amount of wine and crushed lotus could banish the scene unfolding at his feet.

  The beetles had been at work for more than an hour, and yellowed bones could be seen amid the tattered scraps of red meat still clinging to Arkhan’s frame. With a rustle and a swirl of the necromancer’s ghostly retinue, Nagash stretched forth his hand and the swarm of beetles fled the vizier’s ruined body in a chittering tide, racing across the marble floor and over the sandalled feet of the immortals.

  “You failed me,” the Undying King said. He rose to his feet and approached Arkhan’s ravaged form. “I delivered our enemies into your hands, and you let them slip away.”

  Arkhan’s body shivered and twitched. He turned his shredded face to his master. Blood and other fluids pooled in the empty eye sockets. His jaw worked clumsily, driven by just a few remaining shreds of muscle, but the only sound he could manage was a thin, tortured wheeze.

  The Undying King held out his hand, and Ghazid, his servant, appeared from the shadows behind the throne. The blind wretch carried a wide copper bowl brimming with a thick, steaming crimson fluid, and he walked with exaggerated care, as though fearful of spilling a single drop. A shiver went through the immortals as they smelled the elixir. One or two even forgot themselves and took a step or two towards the bowl, their blue lips drawn back in a rictus of thirst. Nagash stilled them with a single look.

  For several long minutes there was only the swish of the servant’s feet upon the stones and Arkhan’s jagged, whistling breaths.

  It had been barely seven hours since the ambush outside the city walls. The main body of Nagash’s host had arrived within two hours after sunset. As soon as the king realised he’d been deceived he’d driven his troops forwards with merciless zeal, but by then it was already too late. The armies of the east had withdrawn far up into the Valley of Kings, and the Lybarans had managed to collapse the Gates of the Dawn behind them. The king’s skeletal horde was digging its way through the rubble with the untiring energy of the living dead, but it would be hours, perhaps days, before a path could be cleared to allow the army through.

  The plain outside the City of the Dead was carpeted with the bodies of the fallen. Perhaps five thousand enemy troops had been killed in the battle, but many more had managed to escape. The Undying King had not been pleased by the news.

  Ghazid came to a halt beside his master. Nagash glanced down into the bowl’s depths, and placed his palm against the red, turgid surface.

  The necromancer’s gaze fell to the vizier’s ruined body. His ghostly servants reached out to Arkhan, winding ethereal tendrils around his arms and legs, and then picking him up off the floor. He hung upright before his master, dangling awkwardly like a smashed puppet. Blood ran from the chewed flesh in long, ropy strands.

  Nagash stepped forwards and pressed his bloody hand to Arkhan’s raw face. The immortal stiffened, bones and cartilage crackling wetly as the sorcerous mixture went to work restoring the vizier’s body. Limbs twisted and popped, pulled back into place by knitting muscle and tendons. Blood poured in a rush from split arteries and veins as Arkhan’s heart gained strength, pouring onto the marble, and then slowing steadily as the vessels closed and were covered by a pale film of skin.

  More cartilage popped in Arkhan’s throat. The vizier’s chest swelled with an agonised breath, and he let out a single, tortured scream.

  The Undying King took his hand away from Arkhan’s face. The red print of his palm and fingertips vanished in moments, like water soaked into parched earth. Arkhan shuddered convulsively, and then spoke. His words came haltingly as his lips grew back to cover his teeth.

  “We… did… all,” he stammered. “All that… could… be done.” Arkhan shuddered again. Newly formed eyes rolled in their sockets. “They… came in daylight.”

  “Better you had burned and done my bidding!” Nagash cried, and the braziers guttered as though caught in a desert wind.

  “Slay me then!” Arkhan said. “Cast me to the flames if it please you, master.”

  Nagash gave his vizier a calculating stare.

  “In time, perhaps,” he said. “For now, you will continue to serve me. We march upon Mahrak as soon as a path to the valley has been cleared.”

  A stir went through the assembly, and Amn-nasir’s face rose from the depths of his goblet.

  “Mahrak?” he asked hoarsely, as though the name made little sense to him. Seheb let out a groan. Nuneb stiffened.

  “We cannot,” Seheb said, his lips trembling with fear. “We dare not march upon the City of the Gods! You go too far—”

  “No city in Nehekhara has need of two rulers,” Nagash said coldly, turning and fixing Seheb with a contemptuous stare. The necromancer pointed to Nuneb. “Bring him here.”

  At once, half a dozen immortals moved towards the twin kings. Their Ushabti moved to shield the kings, their hands darting to the swords slung across their backs.

  “No!” Seheb cried. The young king fell to his knees. “Forgive me, great one! I… I misspoke. I merely meant to say that we have thrown back the invaders. The west is secure, and our cities have been neglected for many years.” He cast about fearfully, looking to Amn-nasir for support and receiving only a hooded stare in return. “If you would complete the destruction of Rasetra and Lybaras, so be it, but what purpose would it serve to attack Mahrak?”

  “Who do you imagine we do battle with, you little fool?” Nagash snarled. “Do you think these petty kings would dare defy Khemri alone?
No, Mahrak is the heart of this rebellion. The Hieratic Council fears me, for I have learned the truth about them and their feckless gods.” The necromancer raised his bloodstained hand and clenched it into a fist. “When Mahrak falls, the kings of the east will bow to me, and a new empire will be born.”

  Seheb stared up at the Undying King, his eyes bright with fear. The immortals were only a few steps away, waiting on Nagash’s command. Steeling himself, he pressed his forehead to the marble floor, as a slave would before his master.

  “As you command, great one, so shall it be,” he said. “Let Mahrak be brought to its knees before your might.”

  Nagash considered the twin kings for a moment more, and then waved the immortals away.

  “The last battle is almost at hand,” he said, as the pale figures returned to their places. “Serve me well, and you will prosper. Immortality itself will be yours.”

  Another wave of the necromancer’s hand, and his spirits released Arkhan. The vizier landed in a heap, still too weak to stand, but his skin was whole once more. Nagash studied the fallen vizier and nodded thoughtfully.

  “Great shall be the wonders of the coming age,” he said.

  The gods alone saved the armies of the east, or so its warriors believed.

  They had found the Gates of the Dawn abandoned, a thing unheard of since Settra’s time, hundreds of years past. Ekhreb and his riders took the fortifications without incident, and found its storehouses well stocked with food, water and supplies, enough to sustain the army on the long march to Mahrak. The companies each drew their own stores as they passed through the gates into the Valley of Kings, and were even able to steal a few hours’ rest while the Lybaran engineers searched for a way to bring the fortifications down.