02 - Nagash the Unbroken

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  At first, the metal panels refused to budge. Nagash let out an impatient hiss and called upon his ebbing power. His muscles burned, and he heaved upon the doors with all his might. There was a crack of corroded metal, then a squeal of hinges, and the doors began to move. They were immensely heavy, Nagash realised, far heavier than bronze, though not quite as heavy as gold. As they swung open, a fierce green glow poured out over Nagash and spilled into the ancient hall.

  The necromancer felt his skin prickle at the touch of the sorcerous light. Beyond the heavy metal doors was an alcove of rough stone that had been chipped away to reveal a hemisphere of glowing, green stone as large as a wagon wheel. Aeons past, some foolhardy barbarian had braved the stone’s searing touch to carve the semblance of a pupil and an iris into the surface of the stone, transforming it into an unblinking, blazing eye.

  Nagash raised his hands covetously to the eye of the burning god and began to laugh. It was a sound of madness and murder, of devastation and despair. It was a ringing portent of ruin for the kingdoms of men.

  Far up the tunnel, where the storm winds were rising, the warlord and his retainers heard the terrible sound and awaited their master’s bidding.

  NINE

  Among Thieves

  Lahmia, The City of the Dawn, in the 76th year of Khsar the Faceless

  (-1598 Imperial Reckoning)

  It wasn’t the tireless white horse of his dreams, but the chestnut-coloured Numasi warhorse was as fine as any animal Arkhan had ever ridden. Long of leg, with a broad chest and powerful hindquarters, the stallion had been bred for agility, strength and stamina—qualities meant to keep it and its rider alive on the battlefield. Presented as a gift from the Horse Lords to the King of Lahmia, the animal had been stuck in a stable, surrounded by sleek-limbed palfreys meant for nothing more demanding than an occasional hunt or ceremonial parade. The immortal had taken to the sullen, snappish creature at once; both of them had been locked away and largely ignored for far too long.

  They passed through the palace gates at a trot, barely eliciting a response from the royal guard, and followed the broad processional that wound downhill amid the grand villas of the city’s elite. It was just past nightfall, and the city’s young lamp-lighters were still making their rounds down the narrow city streets. One boy with a long, reed taper had to leap nimbly to the side to avoid a bite from Arkhan’s horse as he went by. Sounds of music and conversation flowed from the open windows of the walled villas as nobles gathered for an early evening meal before heading out into the city for a long night of debauchery. For the moment, the streets were relatively clear, and the immortal made good time. He was already impatient for the wide road and the rolling hills west of the city.

  It had only been six months since Neferata had ordered the king to set him free—she’d forced him to wield the chisel personally, to Lamashizzar’s utter humiliation—and already his memories of the last hundred and fifty years were fading away, like a long and tortured fever-dream. Neferata had chosen to maintain her quarters in the Women’s Palace, far from her husband, and had been careful not to make too great a spectacle of her own newfound freedom. Where he’d once been confined to a single corner of a large, dingy room, Arkhan now had the run of the entire palace wing. Servants had been ordered to clean the corridors and begin refurnishing a suite of rooms, and he had been provided with a fine wardrobe of rich, dark silks and fine leather accoutrements.

  Neferata had even gone so far as to provide him with a sword—not the curved, bronze khopesh that most Nehekharan warriors favoured, but a heavy, double-edged weapon made from dark Eastern iron. It was more than just a gesture of trust and esteem, Arkhan knew. The queen was also demonstrating her authority, both to him and to the rest of Lamashizzar’s small cabal.

  The queen gave him a weapon as a sign that she had nothing to fear from him. She opened the king’s stables to him to show that she understood he had nowhere else to go.

  After a short while the processional reached the bottom of the great hill and entered the city’s eastern merchant quarter, where fine goods from all over Nehekhara were sold to the city’s nobles and wealthier merchants. Business was still brisk, despite the hour. Trade with the west was finally on the rise again, with caravans arriving every few months from as far away as Numas and Zandri. Small crowds of citizens and servants browsed through the lamp-lit bazaars, buying bronze goods from Ka-Sabar, leather saddles from Numas or exotic spices from the jungles south of Rasetra. Merchants in the short capes and linen kilts of the desert cities haggled with silk-clad Lahmians and even a few haughty-looking Imperial traders, looking for luxury goods to carry back to their homeland. At one point, Arkhan heard a loud crash and a series of hoarse shouts across the wide square, and turned to see a pair of city guardsmen dragging a struggling, spitting young urchin away from a Rasetran spice trader’s stall. If the young thief was very lucky, the city magistrates would only sentence him to a year’s labour on a Lahmian merchant ship, otherwise, he’d be chained to the rocky shoreline north of the city and left for the crabs to eat.

  Beyond the merchant district sprawled the cramped districts that were home to the city’s many artisans and labourers. Here the streets were mostly quiet, as the tradesmen and their families retired to their rooftops or their small, walled courtyards after a long day’s work. Children ran about or played games in the cool of the evening, enjoying a few precious hours of freedom. One group ran past Arkhan, led by a tall boy wearing a ghastly clay mask. They were pursued by another group of children brandishing sticks and wearing crude circlets or crowns woven from river reeds. They were intent on catching the masked boy, while his companions brandished sticks of their own whenever the pursuers drew too close.

  “After them!” the young kings shouted gleefully. “Death to the Usurper and his minions! Death to Nagash!”

  The masked figure turned and made an obscene gesture at his pursuers, sparking more laughter and threats. Arkhan reined in his horse as they dashed across the street in front of him. The grotesque mask turned his way for a brief instant, and then the boy was gone, leading his young immortals into the shadows of a nearby alley.

  Arkhan was still shaking his head in bemusement when the tightly packed mud-brick homes gave way to the cruder, sprawling mass of huts and wicker enclosures that crowded up against the range of rounded hills at the western edge of the city. The people here were mostly descendants of refugees from distant Mahrak, left to eke out a miserable existence among Lahmia’s outcasts. Beggars, whores and would-be thieves skulked around the fringes of the trade road, eyeing the immortal’s rich attire with predatory interest. Arkhan gave the boldest of them a black-toothed grin and they quickly looked away, seeking easier prey.

  He spurred the warhorse to a canter, eager to be free from the stench and squalor of the dispossessed. Within minutes he was heading up into the wooded hills, leaving the noise and the lights of the city behind at last. Scraggly trees pressed close to the trade road, and the sky was just a narrow band of stars and moonlight overhead. Arkhan breathed in the cool air, fragrant with cedar and pine, and gave the horse its head. The stallion leapt eagerly into a gallop, and for a while he was able to put aside thoughts of formulae and incantations and simply feel the wind upon his face.

  They had made great progress in the past few months, now that Neferata was in the position to obtain human subjects for their experiments. It was easy enough for Arkhan to snatch a beggar or a whore from the edge of the city, drug them with lotus root and slip back with them into the palace in the dead of night. Afterwards, the body could be dumped amid the condemned thieves north of the city and within a few days there would be nothing but bones, picked clean by the hungry sea. So long as they were suitably cautious, the city’s refugee population would keep them safely supplied for hundreds of years. Their mastery of Nagash’s complex ritual was still far from complete, but the elixir they created was more than potent enough to ensure the continued loyalty of Lamashizzar’s cabal.


  As usurpations went, the queen’s move was as clever as it was subtle. Unbeknownst to the rest of the city, Lamashizzar had been transformed overnight from a king to a mere figurehead, issuing Neferata’s edicts in his own name. He couldn’t expose Neferata’s scheme to the rest of the city without implicating himself in the practice of necromancy, and he couldn’t move against her in secret without being opposed by the rest of the cabal.

  Now that Ushoran, Abhorash and the rest had been given a taste of what the elixir could really do, they would have to be idiots to want a return to the thin gruel of goat’s blood offered by the king. So far, Lamashizzar had accepted the new balance of power with what little grace he possessed, spending most of his time drinking and sulking in his quarters. It was possible that the coup had broken his nerve completely; Neferata seemed to think so, but Arkhan wasn’t so sure. Losing a crown was one thing; losing control over Nagash’s elixir was something else again.

  He rode on, up into the hills and onto the edge of the great Golden Plain, where countless farmers reaped harvests of grain, corn and beans from the fertile soil. The vast fields now lay dormant and bare, awaiting the return of the spring. Arkhan reined in the warhorse and stared in silence, savouring the wide-open expanse. The crushed white stone of the trade road glimmered like a mirage beneath the moonlight, beckoning him ever westward, towards the Brittle Peaks and the lands beyond.

  The stallion slowed to a walk, its flanks heaving from the long ride, and Arkhan let the horse choose its own pace as they continued down the road. He was tempted, as he was every night, to simply keep going, past Lybaras and the desolate streets of Mahrak, through the Valley of Kings and the distant Gates of the Dawn. From there, he could slip past hated Quatar, and then to the citadel he’d built in the southern desert, or even to the deserted streets of Khemri itself.

  The Black Pyramid remained at the centre of the city necropolis; the great crypt had been built to defy the ages, and would endure long after the sun had gone dark and cold. There were secret ways inside that no mortal knew of, and with the proper sacrifices, the dark winds of magic could be his to command once more.

  And then… what? The memory of Nagash’s terrible reign was still fresh in the mind of most Nehekharans. If the kings of the great cities knew he still survived, they would spare no effort to destroy him. He could either cower in the shadows like a rat and hope to escape their notice, or else try to raise an army and defy their combined might for as long as he could.

  Lahmia, on the other hand, held out the promise of immortality and the comforts of a wealthy and powerful kingdom. He had little doubt that, under Neferata’s capable leadership, the city would become the undisputed centre of power in all of Nehekhara. Within a few centuries it might even become the seat of a new empire, something that not even Nagash had been able to achieve.

  When that day finally arrived, Neferata would need a strong right hand to lead her armies in the field and expand the borders of her domain; a faithful and ruthless lieutenant—perhaps, in time, even a consort.

  Listen to you, he sneered. Arkhan the Black, bald-headed and broken-toothed, consort to the Queen of the Dawn. What a fool! The damned woman has you under her spell. Can’t you see that? The farther away from her you can get, the better!

  Except, of course, that he had nowhere to go.

  Brooding on his fate, Arkhan continued down the road for more than an hour, passing farmers’ houses and dark, fallow fields. Dogs barked in the distance; owls hooted, hunting prey, and bats flitted across the face of the moon. After a while, he came to a section of the plain that was still subdivided by stretches of dense woodland. Each time he came upon a stand of trees he paused and took a deep draught of night air.

  Soon enough, his preternatural senses detected a faint hint of cooking fires and sizzling grease. He turned off the road and headed south, down a game trail that led deep into the shadows beneath the trees. The horse picked its way forwards carefully: even Arkhan had a hard time seeing much farther than the stallion’s drooping head. Yet it wasn’t long before the immortal could feel that he was being watched.

  The camp was large and cunningly concealed within the thick trees. Undergrowth had been cleared away to create a series of linked clearings, then used to make a cluster of lean-tos and overhangs surrounding a small, banked cook fire. More than a dozen gaunt, filthy men—as well as a number of women and children—all clad in a motley collection of robes and desert kilts stood and stared warily as he emerged from the woods into the firelight. The women gathered the children and retreated swiftly into the next clearing down the line, while the men drew battered swords or hefted spears at his approach.

  Arkhan reined in and gave them all a long, calculating look. Lips pulled back in a predatory grin. “Well met, friends,” he said. “I smelled wood smoke as I was passing along the road. Is there room for one more traveller around the fire?” He drew a fat wineskin from one of his saddle hooks and showed it to the men. “I’ve two skins of Lybaran red I’ll be happy to share in exchange for a hot meal, and then I’ll be moving on.”

  From where he sat, it was difficult to tell how many people occupied the camp: it could be anywhere from a few score to as much as a few hundred. Bands such as these moved like nomads up and down the plain, never staying in one place for too long lest they draw unwanted attention from the city. Mostly they stalked along the edges of the trade road, preying on merchant caravans for food, trade goods and horses. Arkhan had been seeking out their camps for several months. Many of the bandit gangs had grown adept at hiding in the woods and hollows scattered across the plain, but he’d learned his trade hunting Bhagarite desert raiders, and there were only so many places a large group could make camp without attracting attention.

  The brigands cast questioning glances at a short, stocky man standing closest to the fire. He studied Arkhan for a moment, then nodded curtly. “You can sit by me,” he said, and the rest of the men lowered their weapons. “We’ve grain mash and a little rabbit we can share. Where are you headed?”

  Arkhan slid easily from the saddle and tossed the wineskin to the brigand leader. He shrugged. “Oh, here and there. You know how it is.”

  He might not have any place he could truly go, but in this, Arkhan was far from alone.

  The brigands drank every last drop of Arkhan’s wine, and in return gave him a bowl of greasy stew and some news about the comings and goings of bandit gangs across the plain. The immortal chewed his gristle thoughtfully and listened to every word. Much of it was lies and exaggerations, he knew, coupled with a few honest facts about rival gangs, in the event he was a spy for the city guard. Later, when he’d returned to the palace, he would compare what he’d learned with the notes he’d taken from previous encounters, and look for common threads.

  As the hour drew close to midnight, he took his leave of the brigands. Their leader and his lieutenants, who’d gotten the lion’s share of the wine, made no protest, friendly or otherwise, as he said his farewells and led his horse back into the dark woods in the direction of the trade road. He could sense the movements of other bandits pacing him through the darkness, all the way to the edge of the wood line and beyond. They shadowed him across the bare fields, their brown capes blending with the dark earth. Most likely they were making sure he wasn’t reporting back to a waiting troop of city guardsmen, but it was also possible that they meant to avail themselves of his fine horse and expensive iron sword. It had been tried a few times before.

  They followed him all the way to the trade road, but pressed no closer than a few dozen yards. Once the horse was back on stable footing, the immortal swung into the saddle and waved farewell to his erstwhile shadows before setting off towards the city at a brisk trot.

  He gauged that the camp contained a good hundred or so bandits, and a third as many women and children. It was one of the largest such gangs he’d encountered to date. There were enough armed men wandering the Golden Plain to amount to a small army; most were fairly organi
sed and they were all heavily-armed. All they lacked was a strong leader to unite them under a single banner.

  The more such gangs he encountered, the more Arkhan believed that his plan had merit. He could start with the largest gang, gain their loyally through a mixture of charisma, fear and bribery, then begin forming ties with other, smaller groups. With the right mix of ruthlessness and reward, he could build an organization fairly quickly, and having an armed force at his command occupying the Golden Plain would give him an outside source of power that he currently lacked. That was a lever that he could apply to any number of inconvenient obstacles.

  Before he knew it, Arkhan was at the edge of the plain and heading downward through the wooded hills. The lights of the city glimmered on the horizon, unimpeded by the barrier of high city walls. Of all the great cities of Nehekhara, only Lahmia disdained such fortifications. Siege warfare had been unheard of before the war against the Usurper, and old King Lamasheptra trusted in his dragon men to keep the city safe. He wondered if the queen would take steps to correct her father’s mistake.

  Suddenly the stallion tossed its head, checking its stride and snorting in surprise. It was the only warning the immortal had before the arrows struck home.

  Two powerful blows struck him on the left side, one just below his ribcage and the other in the side of his thigh. Searing pain stole the wind from his lungs. He pitched forward against the horse’s neck, tasting blood in his mouth and fumbling at the reins. Gritting his teeth, he tried to spur the horse forward, only to find that his left leg wouldn’t move. The arrow had passed completely through his thigh and buried itself in the thick leather of his saddle, pinning it in place.

  A third arrow hissed out of the darkness, missing him by a hair’s-breadth, then a fourth punched deep into his left shoulder. This time he cried out, cursing at the ambushers. He’d grown careless during his long confinement, letting himself walk into such an obvious trap. With the moonlight glowing on the white stone road he might as well have hung an oil lamp around his neck. The archers could see him clearly, while he was all but blind.