His choice was made for him when he saw the terrorgheist swat Gotrek aside and turn its baleful gaze towards its mistress and her opponent. Felix raced to intercept the beast, hurdling a shattered chariot, and crushing the soft skull of a crippled zombie in his haste. Nitocris had manoeuvred Khalida so that the High Queen’s back was to the monster, which scrambled forward, bulling aside skeletons and zombies alike in its eagerness.
Felix sprang at the creature’s head, his sword piercing one of the gaping cavities in its flesh-denuded skull. The beast jerked to the side, and Felix held on for dear life as the creature’s sudden movement lifted him off his feet. ‘Good shot, manling!’ Gotrek roared. ‘Herd it towards me.’ Past the terrorgheist’s writhing limbs, he saw the Slayer charging forward, his body streaked with blood, dust and sand, but his enthusiasm undimmed. Gotrek laughed as he ran, his thick legs covering the distance between himself and the beast more quickly than Felix had thought possible. The terrorgheist saw the Slayer and its jaws opened. Felix felt the hairs on his neck and arms prickle, and he smelt something like the stink of a mass grave. Then a black sound tore from the beast and he saw something like a wave of molten frost wash over Gotrek. The runes on Gotrek’s axe blazed brighter than the sun for a moment, and then its edge was smashing down through the front of the terrorgheist’s skull.
Gotrek planted one boot on the terrorgheist’s head and his muscles bulged as he tore the axe free in a spray of rotten blood and slime. ‘Want to scream, do you? I’ll give you something to scream about!’ Gotrek frothed. His eyes were wide and his teeth were bared in a grimace of effort. He slammed the axe down again and again until the terrorgheist’s bloated body sagged, and its head had been reduced to a pulpy ruin. Gotrek wiped a splash of gore out of his eyes. He looked at Felix and spat, ‘Where’s the witch? I have a doom to collect.’
Before Felix could answer, the clash of blades drew their attention. Khalida and Nitocris spun and danced about one another, moving with the speed of the dead. Their blades connected and skidded away in a flash of sparks and a shriek of metal. Nitocris chopped down at Khalida’s head, and the High Queen threw up a hand to deflect the blow. Nitocris’s blade sent her hand spinning away. Nitocris leapt away from a slash that would have disembowelled her. She threw back her head and gave a shriek reminiscent of her mount. Felix turned and saw a number of her handmaidens speeding forward, racing through the battle, eyes fixed on the queen of Lybaras. ‘Gotrek,’ he said.
‘I see them,’ Gotrek said, ‘but I want the hag, not her servants.’ He moved towards Nitocris, eye glittering. ‘You hear me, hag? Gotrek is coming to collect his debt!’ He raised his axe and broke into a headlong charge. Felix followed suit, hoping to reach Khalida’s side before the other vampires reached them.
A vampire sped past Felix and lunged for Khalida, a spear digging for the High Queen’s head. Felix tackled Khalida and the spear missed her by inches. He rolled aside as the spear jabbed down between them. Khalida grabbed the haft, and her sword took the vampire’s hand off at the wrist. The woman reeled with a scream, and Felix caught her in the side. She fell, still screaming. One of her feet caught him in the hip, and he felt the bone grind. He staggered out of the way as Khalida finished what she had started, pinning the vampire’s head to the ground with the spear.
Gotrek, meanwhile, had got Nitocris’s notice. She didn’t seem puzzled by the presence of a dwarf on the battlefield, and she laughed as she writhed aside from Gotrek’s blows. She crashed into Gotrek and rolled across his shoulders, using the force of his blow against him. She dropped to her feet behind him and her sword kissed his back, drawing blood. Gotrek stumbled forwards, his eye wide in shock. He whirled. ‘You’re fast, hag,’ he growled, reaching over his shoulder and drawing back fingers red with his own blood.
‘And you’re strong,’ Nitocris said, licking a dollop of his blood from her blade.
Gotrek laughed and twirled his axe. ‘The question is, are you fast enough to kill me, woman?’ He spat blood and licked his lips. ‘Haven’t met one of you blood-suckers yet that is.’ He exposed his teeth and made a ‘come-hither’ gesture.
‘Are you strong enough to make it worth my while?’ Nitocris said, as they began to circle one another. ‘I haven’t yet met an opponent who is.’ She shot forwards. Sword scraped against axe. Gotrek laughed again and forced her back. They traded blows back and forth. Nitocris was the swifter, but Gotrek’s strength, incredible even by dwarf standards, was almost a match for hers.
Nearby, Felix ducked aside as a vampire pounced. Khalida smoothly spitted the creature, excising her heart with a flick of her wrist. Even one-handed the High Queen of Lybaras was deadly. ‘Your companion should hurry up and die, if that is what he craves,’ Khalida said, ‘for the Serpent Queen is coming to the end of her reign.’ She caught a second vampire’s wrist and gave the creature a boot to the belly. Felix quickly beheaded the vampire, as she bent double.
The High Queen didn’t appear concerned about the squalling blood-drinkers closing in on them from all sides. Every surviving vampire had been drawn to Nitocris’s cry, and they circled Khalida and Felix like jackals trying to bring down a wounded lioness. ‘I don’t think he’s in any particular hurry,’ Felix said, whipping his sword around to drive the vampires back. ‘He seems to be enjoying himself.’
And he did. Gotrek roared and cursed, but he smiled widely as he fought. The smile vanished when Nitocris leapt over a wild swing of his axe and landed on his shoulders. She reversed her blade, grabbed it in both hands, and plunged it down into Gotrek’s shoulder. A howl burst from the Slayer’s lips and his axe fell from his hand. Nitocris tore her blade loose and dropped off Gotrek as he sagged. The Slayer clamped one hand to the spurting wound, and sank to one knee. He drove his unwounded arm backwards in an attempt to knock Nitocris aside as she came for him again. She danced back out of reach and laughed.
‘Not fast enough,’ she said. She held up her blade and opened her mouth to catch the opalescent pearls of dwarf blood that rained down from the edge of the blade. She swept the blade out, spattering the ground with Gotrek’s blood. Gotrek growled wordlessly. Blood squeezed from between his clamped fingers. Felix stared in shock at the steadily pumping wound. He’d seen Gotrek hurt before. The Slayer accrued wounds like other men accrued debts. But this was, by far, the worst he’d seen in more years than he could recall. Not since the injuries Gotrek had suffered in Karak Dum had Felix seen him so pale.
He made to go to the Slayer, but Khalida stopped him. ‘Your part in this is done,’ she rasped. ‘Stand and watch.’
‘But–’
‘Stay where you are, manling,’ Gotrek croaked. He grabbed his axe and used it to lever himself to his feet. The Slayer looked at the High Queen, who inclined her head regally. Nitocris watched the exchange and clapped her hands together in glee. She spread her arms and looked around. All around them, the dead still fought in grim silence. How much of Nitocris’s army remained, Felix couldn’t say, but what was left was doing its single-minded best to continue the battle.
‘Is that it, queen of nothing?’ Nitocris said. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ She looked around. ‘This is what I have been waiting for?’ She extended her sword towards Khalida. ‘I have spent centuries preparing for this. Centuries scheming and wondering if victory was possible. Centuries yearning for the chance to match blades and fangs with the false serpent of Lybaras. Centuries not knowing if I would be worthy of travelling beyond the desert, to the lands of spice and honey.’ She swiped the air with her blade. ‘I could have beaten you by myself, with my handmaidens for an audience. I could have broken you across my knee the minute my queen charged me with the task!’ Her smile faded. ‘I lost so much time. Can you not even give me a challenge worthy of me? Can you not make this all mean something?’
‘What should it mean?’ Khalida asked. Her voice carried easily across the battlefield. She held up her sword. ‘Everything she told you is a lie, you know. Every whisper, every purr, every g
rand dream… All lies. She whispered the same things to me, as a girl. As she whispered them to others down through the millennia. Games within games, and she and I are the only players.’ She looked down the length of her blade at Nitocris, who was staring at her with an expression of incomprehension. ‘How many times has your mistress tried to take Lahmia from me, do you think?’
Nitocris said nothing.
‘One hundred and thirty-six times,’ Khalida said. Her voice was as remorseless as sand scraping stone. ‘One hundred and thirty-six of her followers have raised armies, fleets and beasts to hurl themselves against my walls. Sometimes they come north, sometimes east, or south. They come from the sea, and the sky and Great Desert, from the jungles and the mountains. They pour forth in a limitless tide and they are broken on my walls.’
She turned the blade, so that the thin ribbon of light now stretching across the horizon caught it. ‘And every time, she sends with them a token of her affection, one cousin to another. A lock of her hair, a book of poems by a philosopher of our acquaintance, the crown of Lahmia taken from her husband’s head, the amulet of Asaph stolen from my crypt, or… a sword she used to shed my blood. There is no magic in this thing. It is merely old steel, and badly cared for – still sharp, however. She stole it in order to let me know we had begun the old game again.’
The sky was still thick with bats, though the sun was beginning to rise. Felix grabbed his wrist. When the sun rose, the poison would enter his veins. But somehow, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was what was going on in front of him. ‘This is not my undoing,’ Khalida said, holding the sword up. ‘It is a gift from one player to another. A sign that she has not forgotten me, and to ensure that I do not forget her. In all the world, down through the long corridor of centuries, there has only been this game. And she has been my only opponent. You were right, before, on the walls, when you said you were a puppet. But not of fate… You are her puppet, her pawn, and this is her gambit.’ Khalida spun the blade with a swordswoman’s grace and planted it blade-first into the ground.
‘Worthy, you say,’ Khalida said, stepping back. ‘You are not worthy to fight me. Queens do not duel pawns.’ She gestured to Gotrek. ‘They let their servants deal with such things. Gotrek Gurnisson?’
‘Aye, High Queen?’ Gotrek said formally. He stood straight and with no sign of weakness from his still dripping wound. He took his bloody hand away and let it fall by his side.
‘Will you serve as my herald in this duel?’
‘Aye,’ Gotrek said, bowing shallowly.
Khalida folded her arms. ‘Dispose of this creature. The game is done, and her presence offends me.’
‘My pleasure,’ Gotrek said, turning towards Nitocris. He raised his axe. He tapped the haft against his wound. ‘You got lucky, hag. Let’s see if you can actually cut my throat this time, instead of just giving me a bit of a pinch.’
Nitocris had been silent as Khalida spoke. Now, her face twisted into an expression of bestial rage and she leapt towards Gotrek with a feral scream. Mockery was gone from her movements and her voice, leaving only a savage fury in its wake. As her sword connected with his axe, the world seemed to shudder to a halt. The sounds of battle faded around them, as if the eye of every dead thing were drawn towards the duel between Slayer and Serpent Queen.
Nitocris moved as swiftly as ever, but Gotrek’s speed had somehow increased. He moved faster than a being of his bulk ought to have been able to do. His rune-axe stopped every blow and laid light kisses on Nitocris’s limbs and torso in reply, drawing blood with every touch. The vampire did not slacken her pace. She spun about the Slayer like a dervish, striking at him from every direction, but Gotrek intercepted her again and again.
Finally, Nitocris leapt up over him, her sword swinging up to cave in his skull. Gotrek swung his axe out, and the vampire’s blade shattered into a hundred shining fragments. Nitocris hit the ground and rolled to her feet. She tossed aside the ruined blade and lunged for Gotrek, jaws wide in a mindless shriek.
Gotrek waited for her, face set in an expressionless mask. Then, when she was only inches away, he spun his axe to meet her rush. Blood stained the air, and Nitocris crashed down. Gotrek closed his eye and stood for a moment, axe extended, limbs trembling with exertion. Sweat covered him, and blood still pumped down from the wound in his shoulder. Then he lowered his arm and turned.
Nitocris had crawled to her knees, and she gripped her throat with both hands. Blood spurted between her fingers, and her eyes bulged, red, as she glared hatefully at Khalida. She rose awkwardly to her feet, took a step forwards, and then another. Blood sluiced down her hands and chest. Her mouth worked silently. Khalida let her come.
‘Herald,’ she said, simply, when Nitocris had come within arm’s-reach of her.
Gotrek reached up and grabbed Nitocris’s scalp. With a single, powerful jerk of his arm, he tore her head from her ruptured neck. Nitocris’s body refused to fall. Her bloody hands reached out, and knotted themselves in Khalida’s robes. In Gotrek’s grip, her jaws snapped soundlessly, as her eyes rolled in their sockets, blazing with fury. Then, the fire dimmed, and the eyelids sank down. The champing jaw slackened, and her body tottered and fell backwards. As it hit the ground, something very much like a vast sigh rippled through her army, and one by one, every dead thing that was not of Lybaras fell, bereft of life and will.
Gotrek extended Nitocris’s head to Khalida. She took it, brought its lips to hers, kissed them, and then tossed it aside. The vampire’s body began to smoulder as the sun began to rise. Felix looked at his arm and tensed, waiting for the sting of poison.
Nothing happened.
He looked up. Khalida was watching him, her head cocked to the side. ‘I don’t think it’s working,’ he croaked.
‘It hasn’t worked in four centuries,’ Djubti croaked from behind him. The liche-priest looked as tired as a dead man could, and leaned on his staff. Behind him came Rhupesh and Kharnak, the latter cradling Zabbai in his arms. Felix smiled as he saw her. The smile faded as Djubti continued. ‘Poison dries up quickly, after a few years.’
‘What?’ Felix said, not understanding.
Gotrek frowned, but not for long. He gave a loud guffaw. ‘Ha!’
‘What?’ Felix demanded.
Khalida reached towards him and tore the bracelet from his wrist before he could pull away. ‘I needed to ensure that the Doom-Seeker did as I bade.’
‘But-but you said…’ Felix began. ‘You lied!’
‘Yes,’ Khalida said. ‘I am queen. It is my prerogative to lie to barbarians, and to my enemies.’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘I could not trust you to do as I asked. So I had to ensure that the game was played the way I wished.’
‘But-but… you didn’t even need the sword!’ Felix said. ‘I almost died – we almost died!’ he shouted. Gotrek put a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Leave it, manling. We got a good fight out of it, at least,’ Gotrek said. He rubbed his wounded shoulder. ‘Not much of one, mind, but good enough.’
Before Felix could reply, drums thundered, and chariot wheels rattled. Felix turned, and saw that the horizon to the west of Lybaras, where the Devil’s Backbone stretched, was occupied by an army of the dead. Not zombies these, but skeletons clad in bronze, and bearing standards in the shapes of scorpions. Their approach had been hidden by the distraction of the battle.
The drums continued to roll, and as he watched, the newcomers lowered their spears, set their shields and began to advance. ‘Mahrak,’ Khalida said simply.
‘Are they here to help, or…’ Felix trailed off.
Khalida didn’t look at him. She watched the assembling legions. Behind them, the Lybaran forces began to form up, readying themselves to meet this new threat. They had just finished one war, but didn’t seem too bothered about starting another. He recalled Antar’s words about war being a game, and the interminable battle in the crater and shuddered. Was battle all that there was in these lands?
His heart s
ank as he considered it. It seemed that even if the poison had been nothing more than a ploy, he was still going to die. Khalida held up her remaining hand as Kharnak and the other ushabti stepped forwards, stopping them from racing towards the enemy. Behind them, the Emerald Sentinels stomped into position, and they too froze at Khalida’s command.
A trio of chariots rumbled out of the newcomers’ ranks and towards Lybaras. Felix shook his head as he recognized one of the riders. Gotrek laughed. ‘Look, manling. He survived after all.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ Felix said, as Antar descended from his chariot. The tomb-prince, like Zabbai, looked much the worse for wear from his travels. How he had managed to survive the Temple of Skulls and make it back to his city, Felix couldn’t say, but it was clear that it had taken a toll upon him. Antar was rattling worse than ever as he strode towards them, accompanied by his driver. The driver stepped forwards, as if to speak, when Antar shoved him aside.
‘Antar, Most Beloved of the Sun, Moon and Stars, sees that you have defeated the charnel rabble, O Queen of the Serpent’s Vengeance. He is pleased! Your victory is Antar’s victory, for it was he who helped you achieve it!’ He gestured towards the waiting army. ‘Antar thought you might need aid, and thus, he mustered the Scorpion Legions of Mahrak to come to fight at your side.’
‘Indeed, son of Mahrak, you did,’ Khalida said. ‘And Lybaras thanks you, and asks that, since our enemies have been routed, you take this army you have so thoughtfully brought and remove it from our demesnes.’
Antar cocked his head. ‘Ah. The Helpful Lion regrets that, having roused the Scorpion Kings of Mahrak, he must provide them with battle. If it be not with the enemies of Lybaras, then it must be with Lybaras itself. Such is the will of King Tharruk, who has himself come to witness the battle.’ He gestured back at a splendidly adorned chariot, and its regal rider. Antar looked at Khalida. ‘Of course, Antar did convince the king that, in lieu of open battle, a contest of champions would be a most fitting decider for the grievances between our cities.’
Gotrek and Felix: The Serpent Queen Page 33
