Nagash searched for Neferem amid the shadows of the gully for a long time, muttering bitterly to himself. Once, he called her name, but her spirit would not be summoned so easily. Finally he turned and scrabbled the rest of the way up the slope.
At the summit, Nagash saw only a broken sea of foothills, stretching off to the horizon. The dark mountain had receded from him once again. He turned his face skyward, casting about for the trail once more, and then continued his limping course eastward.
Hours later, when the pale moon was close to its zenith, another pack of scavengers came sniffing into the gully where the Usurper had been. They circled about the rocky overhang, hissing and chittering to each other in their own strange tongue. As with any pack, it was the largest of the creatures that decided their course, cuffing and threatening the rest into submission. They too continued eastward, moist noses bent low over the rocks as they followed Nagash’s strange, unliving scent. They loped and lurched and scrabbled along, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on two.
Nagash had so far passed beyond the grasp of death, but not beyond the jaws of constant, grinding agony. Every step, every movement of arm or head, sent waves of vivid, aching pain reverberating through his wasted body. The awful wounds he’d suffered hardly troubled him at all—or at least, no more so than the agony that gripped the rest of his frame. It was a consequence of the elixir, he knew. The magical potion—wrought from blood and life energy stolen from innocent, anguished victims—allowed him to retain the vigour of youth for hundreds of years, and was the key to creating an empire unheard of since the age of Settra the Magnificent.
Normally, it would also heal nearly any injury, no matter how severe, but not since that fateful day at Mahrak, when the army of Lahmia had thrown in its lot with the rebel kings of the east and unleashed their strange weapons on him and his unliving host. He remembered the wall of fire and a crescendo of thunder from the ranks of Lahmia’s black-armoured warriors, and then watching the massed ranks of his corpse-soldiers disintegrating before him. The traitors had turned on him just as he’d won his greatest triumph. Mahrak had been cast down and the sacred covenant with it. The power of the priesthood and their parasite deities had been swept aside, so that only he, Nagash the Undying, remained.
As he made his way slowly down the rubble-strewn slope of another dark ridgeline, Nagash heard a wheezing breath in his ear. It had a rasping, ragged tone, like wind blowing across the end of a broken branch.
You are no god, a man’s voice sneered. Do you remember what I said to you in your tent at Mahrak? You are a fool, Nagash. An arrogant, deluded fool who thinks himself the equal of the gods. And look at you now: a madman, clad in rags, stumbling blindly through a dead and pitiless land.
Shouting in rage, Nagash whirled at the voice, but his footing slipped and he tumbled head over heels to the bottom of the treacherous slope. He fetched up painfully against a small boulder. His limbs were twisted awkwardly beneath him, and at first they refused to obey his will.
As he struggled to force his body into action, Nagash became aware of a ghostly figure glaring down at him from a little further upslope. Nebunefer was a frail, ancient little man, clad in the same threadbare robes he’d worn on the day he’d died. His wrinkled head lay at an unnatural angle, the stub of broken vertebrae jutting painfully against the taut skin of his bent neck. Like Neferem, the old priest’s eyes glittered with pure hate.
How the mighty have fallen, Nebunefer said. You dare to call the mighty Ptra a parasite? He created the earth, and everything that lives upon it. What little power you possess was stolen, ripped from the souls of the innocent. It’s finite, and the last sands of the hourglass have almost run out.
“Not yet, you old fool,” Nagash snarled back. “If you were still flesh, I would wring your neck a second time! Watch!
His limbs felt leaden, his joints frozen like corroded bronze, but Nagash would not be denied. Slowly, clumsily, he forced his good arm to work, and then his legs. Minutes later, he stood shakily on his feet again, but Nebunefer was gone.
“Jackals,” he spat into the darkness. “We’ll see who laughs last.”
It took more than an hour for Nagash to climb the opposite slope, snarling curses and burning with fever all the while. His limbs were growing stiffer by the moment. He drove himself onward with nothing more than the belief that the dark mountain was just ahead, right over the top of the next ridge.
It had to be.
He would not succumb. He would not fail. He was the rightful King of Khemri, heir to Settra’s throne, and by extension the master of all Nehekhara.
A faint wind hissed along the ridgeline, just a few yards out of reach. A voice drifted down to him, riding on the sandy breeze.
Usurpation is not a right, brother.
Thutep stood at the crest of the ridge, his face turned towards the moon hanging low overhead. His older brother seemed damnably at peace, staring up at Neru’s beaming face. Only his fingertips, worn down to stumps of splintered bone, hinted at his last, awful moments, buried alive inside his own tomb.
“The strong have the right to rule,” Nagash hissed. “You were weak. You did not deserve the throne. Khemri’s fortunes suffered under your reign.”
Thutep shrugged, never taking his eyes from the moon and the open sky. That was the will of the gods, he said. You were a priest, and a prince of the realm. You wanted for nothing—
“Nothing except an empire,” the Usurper said bitterly. “Had I been firstborn, the people of Khemri would have served me gladly, and the city would have prospered. If you would blame anyone, blame those damned gods you so adore. It was they who made me no more than a second son. It was their will who ultimately sealed you inside that tomb.”
His brother had no answer to that. By the time Nagash reached the summit, Thutep was gone.
Beyond the ridge was a broad, rocky plain. The dark mountain, and its promise of power, might have loomed among the company of a dozen other peaks along the horizon to the east. Beyond their jagged summits, the sky was already paling with the light of false dawn.
There was nowhere to hide. No caves, no overhangs, no brush-covered depressions to crawl into and escape the fire of the sun. Nagash knew it would sear his skin in minutes, but that was of little concern to him. Far worse was its effects on the elixir. The older he and his immortals had become, the more that sunlight sapped the strength of their stolen vigour. When he and his armies marched to war, they moved in a perpetual darkness wrought by fearsome sorcery. Even at the peak of his powers, Nagash doubted he would have survived a full day’s exposure to the sun.
As things were now, he didn’t think that he’d last more than a few minutes.
Gritting his teeth, Nagash began scraping at the baked ground. Ptra could not have him. He would sooner cover himself in dirt like an animal than concede defeat to god or man.
May I be of service, great one?
The voice was soft and too sincere, the kind of tone a servant would take to mock his master to his face. It sounded right by Nagash’s ear. With a monumental effort, he turned his head and glanced up at the ghostly figure kneeling by his side.
Khefru was holding out his hand to Nagash, as though to help him stand. The former priest, who had helped Nagash learn the secrets of necromancy and later conspired with him to seize the throne, smiled down at his former master through a mask of flame. As the Usurper watched, the priest’s body became wreathed in sorcerous fire, just as it had centuries past when Nagash had learned of Khefru and Nekerem’s betrayal.
“Traitor,” Nagash hissed. “Snivelling coward! Enslaving your spirit was too good for you! I should have consumed you utterly when I had the chance.”
To Nagash’s surprise, the ghost’s burning face turned bitter. More is the pity, Khefru said. Better oblivion than an eternity wandering in the cold places of the world. You’ll understand soon enough. The former servant turned, gauging the time until dawn. Not long now.
But the Usurper refu
sed to be cowed by the spirit’s ominous words. “Let it come!” he said. “What do I care if I’m freed from this broken husk of a body? You were never a match for me in life, Khefru—not you, nor Thutep, nor even Nebunefer or Neferem. You shall be my slave again, you cur. Watch and see.”
Khefru’s smile broadened as the flames bit deep into the flesh of his face. Do you imagine that it’s just the four of us? Oh, no, great one. We’re just the ones who could reach you the easiest. There are others out there in the shadows, waiting for your demise. All the people of Mahrak, slaughtered in their thousands and cast adrift, without Usirian to judge them or Djaf to conduct them to the afterlife. All the soldiers of both sides who fell in the final battle, and all the skirmishes who came after, and all the common folk who perished in the famines and plagues that wracked the land afterwards. You cannot imagine so many, the former servant said. But you will have all eternity to entertain them.
This time, Nagash watched the spirit go. Khefru simply stood up and walked away, without so much as a backwards glance. He headed westwards, into the fleeing shadows, and dissipated like smoke.
The scavengers heard him raving long before they actually saw him. He was lying face down in the middle of a rocky plain, spitting curses in a tongue they didn’t understand and directed at nothing they could see. The wasteland had obviously driven the hairless one mad, not that it made any difference to them. His meat would taste the same regardless.
The four of them were starving. There had been six of them once upon a time, when they’d been sent from the tunnels of the Great City to scour the World Above for the hidden gifts of the Great Horned One.
During the second year of their great hunt, they’d seen the claw of their god trace a green arc across the sky, and had followed its trail into the depths of the wasteland, where they’d found a scar gouged in the packed earth and a handful of treasures nestled together like a clutch of new-laid eggs.
Great was their fortune, or so they’d believed. Great would be their glory when they returned with their bounty to the clan master! But tracing their steps back out of the cursed waste had proved much more difficult than they’d bargained for. After the first few months the food had run out, and hunting in the rat-forsaken wasteland was slim. Mad with hunger, they’d turned on one another, and the two weakest had become food for the rest.
When the last of that meat ran out, more than a month ago, the four hunters had spent weeks waiting for one of their fellows to slip up and become the next meal, but none of them were so careless. Finally, growing more and more desperate, one of the band began gnawing at the Horned God’s sky-gift, in hopes of gaining the upper paw over his companions. Out of self-preservation, the other hunters began to nibble their share of the god-stone as well. It tore like a knife through their guts and set their nerves on fire, but it lent them enough vigour to survive and keep the stalemate going.
The hunters ate of the god-stone sparingly, fearing the wrath of the clan-master when they finally did manage to return to the city. Their fur was falling out in patches, and awful, glowing lesions appeared on the raw skin beneath. Catching the scent of the hairless one was a gift from the Horned One himself, they reasoned. They hoped to find enough meat on the prey’s bones to last them until they could escape the wasteland and make their way home.
When they caught sight of the prey’s shrivelled, leathery body they began squabbling over the spoils at once. Knives were drawn. Threats were spat. Alliances were formed and broken in the space of minutes. Finally, the leader of the little band put an end to the bickering and declared that each hunter was entitled to one of the prey’s limbs. Once those were cut off, the torso would be divided four ways, and then they’d all get turns sucking the sweetmeats out of the skull. With dawn looming close on the horizon, the band grudgingly reached an agreement. They shuffled about the hairless one, choosing which limb they wanted and scheming how to steal the rest when an opportune moment arose.
The leader of the pack hefted his knife and flipped the prey onto his back—the better to get at the entrails when the time came. To their surprise, the prey was still alive, its eyes widening at the sight of the knife in the pack leader’s hand. The hunters chuckled. The meal would come with a little entertainment as well.
Hissing expectantly, the pack leader bent down and grabbed the bony wrist of the prey’s one good arm. He started to stretch it out for a clean cut when the hairless one reared upward with a howl and sank its teeth into the hunter’s throat!
Flesh tore. Hot blood sprayed across the rocky ground, and the pack leader let out a choking squeak. The hairless one was clumsy and slow, but the hunters were weak themselves and stunned by the sudden ferocity of the attack. They barely had time to react before their would-be prey grabbed the knife from the dying pack leader’s hand and buried it in the chest of the hunter to his right. Then, with an exultant howl, the hairless one leapt upon the third hunter and the two fell to the ground, stabbing wildly at one another with their knives.
In the space of just a few seconds, the pack had been all but destroyed. The realisation proved too much for the fourth hunter’s fragile courage to withstand. It abandoned its pack-mates and fled squeaking into the pre-dawn shadows.
Nagash pulled the crude knife from the monster’s throat. Dark blood bubbled from the wound. He bent over it at once, gulping down the hot liquid as the creature shuddered in its death throes.
The power! He could taste it in the vile thing’s blood. The Usurper drank deep, marvelling at the fire that raced through his withered limbs.
When the monster was dead he leaned back, chest heaving, face bathed in gore. His emaciated body shuddered as successive waves of agony wracked it, but he welcomed the sensation for what it was. A semblance of power was coursing through his form once more, restoring to him a small amount of vitality.
One day he would thank Khefru for the incentive to try his luck with the beasts. Had he not been so persuaded to survive, the battle might not have gone half so well as it did.
The Usurper glanced about the plain, looking for where the last of the monsters had gone, but the creature had vanished from sight.
What monsters were these? For the first time, Nagash could study his attackers in detail. They looked like nothing so much as diseased men with the heads and naked tails of rats. They were even dressed in filthy kilts made of some sort of woven plant matter, now frayed and begrimed with the dust of the wasteland. Silver earrings glittered from their rodent-like ears, and one wore a thin, gold bracelet around its right wrist. Each of them carried bronze knives of surprising quality, as well made as anything forged in distant Ka-Sabar.
The only other possessions they carried were rough, leather bags, tightly-knotted and secured to their leather belts. Nagash reached down and tugged at the one on his last victim’s belt—and felt a shock of power like a live coal burning in the palm of his hand. He dropped the bag with a start. Then after a moment’s thought he carefully sliced open the side with the point of his bloody knife.
At once, a sickly green glow emanated from the slit. Working carefully with the knife, Nagash opened it further and dumped the bag’s contents onto the ground.
Two small lumps of glowing green stone, each about the size of his thumb, rolled onto the hard ground. The light they cast was intense. Where it touched his bare skin it set his nerves to tingling.
Nagash reached down and carefully picked one up. Heat suffused his fingertips, radiating from the stone in a steady, buzzing stream. He inspected the stone carefully, and was shocked to find what looked like teeth marks chiselled into its rough surface. The creatures were eating the rock? That explained the traces of power in their blood.
The Usurper’s heart began to race. The creatures must have come from the dark mountain. How else could they have come by the same power he sought? No other explanation made sense.
Already, the pain was fading from his limbs, settling into a dull ache that pulsed like a hot ember in his chest. He cons
idered the glowing rock for a moment more, and abruptly reached a decision. Setting the stone back on the ground, he took the hilt of his knife and broke it into three smaller pieces.
With only a moment’s hesitation, Nagash picked up the smallest piece and swallowed it.
Fire burst along every nerve in the Usurper’s body. His muscles swelled with power; his scalp tingled until it burned. Nagash’s mind reeled under the onslaught. It was far wilder and harder to channel than any power he’d known before, but the intensity was still nothing like the enormous energies he’d wielded in the past. It raged through his body, wreaking havoc on flesh and bone. He seized it with his will and directed the raging torrent where he wished it to go.
There was a crackle of bone and a creak of decayed sinew. The Usurper threw back his head and howled his suffering to the sky as his ruined left arm knit back together. Next, foul smelling smoke poured from the holes in his torso and forehead. He doubled over, still shrieking in pain, as flesh and organs were shifted aside.
Thump. Thump. Thump. One after another, three small, dark metal balls thudded to the ground, wreathed in pale greenish steam.
Seconds later, Nagash the Usurper was whole again, in body if not in mind.
The first rays of dawn were breaking over the distant peaks. With a trembling hand, Nagash gathered up the rest of the stones and tucked them back into the slit pouch. As he quickly dragged the bodies of the creatures over to him, he could sense that more stones resided in the pouches of the other creatures he’d killed.
It wasn’t much, but it would be enough, the Usurper vowed. The stones would sustain him and guide him to the great mountain, where he would learn to master its fearsome power.
As Ptra’s light burned overhead, Nagash curled up on the rocky ground, shielded beneath the bodies of those he’d slain, and dreamed of the doom that would befall Nehekhara.
02 - Nagash the Unbroken Page 3
