Ankhat’s lip curled in disgust. He glared at Ushoran.
“There he is,” the immortal snapped. “You’re the one who wanted to free him, so you can do the rest.”
Ushoran gave Ankhat a disdainful stare, but went and knelt by W’soran’s body. Carefully, he gripped the necromancer’s fragile-looking arms and straightened them. Fabric crackled; dust puffed from wrists, shoulders and elbows. W’soran’s skin was as thin as parchment and his bones little more than twigs. He worked gingerly, fearing that they might snap off if he used too much force.
Once the arms were free, Ushoran straightened out the necromancer’s torso, until his body more or less lay flat. W’soran’s face was little more than a snarling death’s-head, his fangs bared in a tight-clenched grimace. The Lord of Masks stared into the necromancer’s desiccated face and paused. He vividly remembered another night, in another cellar, hundreds of years ago, when Lamashizzar had plucked the stone from Arkhan’s heart. He remembered the howl of madness as the immortal had clawed his way back to wakefulness, after having been paralysed for only a few months. W’soran had been trapped, fully aware, in the prison of his own mind for some twenty-two years. Would he have any sanity left?
The Lord of Masks reached out his hand and grasped the length of wood that jutted from W’soran’s ribs. He plucked it free with a quick jerk of the wrist and tossed it across the cellar.
A faint tremor went through W’soran’s bony frame. Ushoran settled back on his heels and waited for the howling to begin.
Moments later, the necromancer’s eyelids snapped open, and Ushoran found himself staring into W’soran’s dark, pitiless eyes. There was no madness there that Ushoran could see; just the cold, calculating intelligence of a serpent. Not a single sound escaped his ragged lips: no cry of terror, or anger, or relief. The lack of reaction chilled him far worse than Arkhan’s tortured howls ever did.
For the first time, Ushoran feared he’d made a terrible mistake. Did they dare place Nagash’s forbidden tomes into W’soran’s hands?
Did they have any other choice, Ushoran thought? They would need an army to defend the city from the invaders. If the living would not answer the call, then the dead would have to march in their place.
—
Fire in the Night
Lahmia, the City of the Dawn, in the 107th year of Ptra the Glorious
(-1200 Imperial Reckoning)
Screams and the tramping of running feet rose from the narrow streets that surrounded the royal palace. Lahmia had lapsed into a shocked silence when the rising sun revealed the vast army camped outside its walls; now, with the coming of night, the city was trying to tear itself apart once more. The City Watch was patrolling the streets in gangs, armed not with clubs but with bared blades, under orders to kill any citizen roaming the streets after dark.
Neferata’s high priestesses filed silently into her bedchamber as the last rays of the sun sank below the hills to the west. She did little more than sip from the proffered cup; just enough to quicken her limbs and whet her hunger to a razor’s edge. Silent and sombre, the masked thralls drew her gently from the bed. This was a duty they had not performed for many years, not since the escape of the Rasetran prince, and they went about their work with slow, almost ritualistic care.
Deft fingers plucked at Neferata’s stained clothes, peeling them away. Golden basins were brought in; they bathed her pale skin and then rubbed it with fragrant oils that had once been held sacred by the priestesses of Asaph. Neferata said nothing, her expression distant as she gazed out through the bedchamber’s tall windows at the restless sea. The striped sails of trading ships spread in a wide arc from the mouth of the harbour, fleeing eastwards on the receding tide.
The thralls wrapped her in robes of dark blue silk and bound them with a girdle of plain, woven leather. A spearman’s supple leather sandals were placed on her feet, secured in place by laced straps that reached as high as her knees.
When she was dressed, the priestesses guided her to a chair and began to work on her hair. Fingers teased and tugged at the mass of knots and tangles. Outside, darkness spread across the surface of the sea. By now, she knew, her warriors would be gathering at the city’s southern gate, and W’soran would have begun his preparations for the great ritual. The sands were slipping through the hourglass.
Neferata waved her hand at the thralls. “Time is wasting. If it won’t come loose, cut it off. I care not.”
The thralls paused. There was a faint murmur of voices and the hands drew away. Neferata steeled herself for the cold touch of the knife—but instead felt another pair of hands take up where the thralls had left off. Deft fingertips unwound one tangle after another, drawing it down around her shoulders and her back. The sensation brought back memories Neferata had buried long ago.
She turned her head slightly to the side. “Listening to me as I slept, again?”
The fingers paused for a moment. “No,” Naaima said quietly. “Not for a very long time.”
“What then?” Neferata demanded. “If you’ve come to gloat, then say your piece and be gone.”
“No,” Naaima said again. She resumed her work, pulling at a stubborn knot at the base of Neferata’s neck. “What’s done is done. I take no joy in seeing Lahmia brought to this.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” Neferata said bitterly. “It’s not your home.”
To the queen’s surprise, Naaima answered with a low chuckle. “Of course it is,” she said. “Lahmia has been my home since the day you set me free, all those years ago.”
Neferata looked away again, out into the darkness. “If only he had listened,” she said hollowly. “How different Nehekhara would be now.”
“It was not his fate,” Naaima replied. “Such things cannot be changed, no matter how we might wish it.”
Neferata fell silent. Frightened screams drifted on the sea breeze.
“Are you still angry with me?”
“No,” Naaima said. “Not anymore. Does that comfort you?”
“I no longer know the meaning of the word.” The queen sighed. “Why did you never ask to leave? Did you think I would have refused you?”
Naaima teased out the last of the knots and picked up a silver brush from the dressing table nearby. “Is it so hard to understand?” she said sadly. “Because I love you.”
“Then you have made a grave mistake.”
“As I said, we cannot change our fates,” Naaima replied. “Once upon a time, you gave me the world. Ever since, I have waited to give it back.” She put down the brush and came around to kneel at the queen’s side.
“Come with me to the east,” she said, taking Neferata’s cold hands in hers. “There is a ship waiting for us in the harbour. We can settle for a time in one of the trade cities, or leave them behind and travel the empire itself. Think of it—”
Neferata frowned. “You think I’d abandon Lahmia?” she said. The queen pulled her hands away. “My family has ruled this city for millennia.”
“All things end,” Naaima replied. “Come away with me. Please. When the sun rises tomorrow, Lahmia will be no more.”
The queen stared down at Naaima, peering into the depths of the immortal’s pleading eyes. Slowly, her expression hardened into a cold, defiant mask.
“Not while I still walk the earth,” Neferata said.
The queen rose from her chair and turned away from Naaima. The priestesses waited in silence, hands clasped at their waists, their expressions hidden behind their masks of gold.
She went to them, raising her arms as if in welcome. Next to them, laid out upon the silken bed, waited her armour of polished iron.
The view from the western gatehouse showed the invading army arrayed in a wide arc from north to south, their camps set in the fallow grain fields just a few dozen yards out of bowshot from the city walls. The darkness made it difficult to gauge the size of the host, but judging by the number of tents and cook-fires alone, W’soran reckoned that their numbers
were vast—probably fifty thousand or more. For once, Neferata had shown a modicum of sense, the necromancer thought. Her pathetic excuse for an army wouldn’t have stood a chance against such a force.
W’soran ran his fingertips along the yellowed pages of the great tome cradled in his left hand and smiled possessively. The taste of vindication was sweet. Even trapped in the stifling darkness of his prison, he had known that this day would come. Now the forbidden tomes were his. The final secrets of the necromantic art lay within his grasp.
He turned away from the gatehouse’s narrow windows, satisfied that they would provide him with the vantage point he required. The large chamber dominated the upper storey of the gatehouse and normally served as a barracks and common room for the guardsmen who stood watch along the western wall. At Neferata’s command the wide, rectangular room had been emptied of cots, tables and chairs, and the guardsmen forbidden to enter on pain of death. A trio of thralls—Neferata’s possessions, which galled W’soran no end, but there was no time to create more of his own—waited at the far end of the room, ready to serve his every command. The bloodless corpses of two young men were piled in a heap near one of the chamber’s two doors, their faces contorted in masks of terror and pain.
The ritual circle had been inscribed on the floor in blood, copied exactly according to the notes and diagrams in Nagash’s tome. W’soran studied the complex incantation with an expectant smile. He had been waiting for this moment for centuries.
“Is all in readiness?”
The necromancer’s head jerked up in surprise. He hadn’t heard Neferata’s approach. The queen had entered through the door to his left, attended by her maidens. The former priestesses were a fearsome sight, clad in dark robes and leather armour reinforced with thin strips of iron. Fresh blood darkened their lips and dripped from their chins. The queen herself was more forbidding still: her torso was cased in a flexible breastplate of polished iron scales, a heavy skirt of leather banded with iron covered her from hips to knees. Hinged iron bracers encased her forearms, heavy enough to block swords and shatter bones. Her face and hands had been cleansed of filth and gleamed like marble in the torchlight. She was radiant, beautiful beyond compare, but her eyes held nothing but death. It was the first time he had seen her since that night in the sanctum, more than twenty years ago. He had looked forwards to the meeting eager to heap upon her all the bitterness and hate that had sustained him in his prison, but the sight of her now gave the necromancer pause.
“The circle is prepared,” he said curtly. “But the effects will be limited. The tombs of the nobility are warded with powerful spells of protection, which require more time to circumvent.”
A flicker of irritation crossed the queen’s face, but she nodded. “Very well,” Neferata said. “The enemy’s pickets have been slain. Ushoran waits in the necropolis, and Ankhat is leading the army through the south gate even now.”
Neferata strode to the gatehouse windows, surveying the battlefield. “And you will guide them from here?”
“It will serve,” W’soran replied.
“Then begin.”
The necromancer gave the queen a sepulchral smile. “As you command,” he said, and sketched a quick, faintly mocking bow. Neferata took no notice, her gaze fixed on the distant enemy.
No doubt searching for her lost prince, W’soran thought, his lip curling into a sneer as he turned his attention to the necromantic circle. With luck, he would find Alcadizzar first. How sweet it would be to present the queen with his still-beating heart.
W’soran took his place before the circle. His gaze fell to the incantation writ upon the page before him. Teeth bared in a death’s-head grin, he began the ritual of summoning.
* * *
The cook-fires of the enemy camp twinkled in the darkness, little more than a mile away. From where he stood on the rocky plain just outside Lahmia’s southern gate, Ankhat could only see perhaps a third of the enemy force, but even that seemed far larger than the small force under his command.
The last of the spear companies were marching down the coastal road, moving to take their place at the far end of the battle-line. The warriors were well armed, each man carrying an eight-foot spear and short sword, and wearing a shirt of iron scales over a thick leather tunic. In addition, each spearman bore a rectangular wooden shield with a round iron boss in the centre; in battle, each man would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his companions and form a solid wall of wood and metal to protect the formation from enemy attacks. Helmeted heads glanced his way as the company went by; the faces Ankhat saw were young and frightened. None of them had ever seen battle before. Would they remember their training when they came to grips with the enemy and the blood began to flow? Ankhat had his doubts. Most had answered the call because they had families in the city and knew that their loved ones would be punished if they didn’t obey.
The exception was the soldiers of the royal guard. A thousand men strong, they were clad in heavier armour and wielded fearsome, sickle-bladed polearms instead of spears. Most of them were from families whose sons had guarded the royal palace for generations and were given payment and privileges far above what a typical spearman received. Their courage and skill were unquestioned, as well as their devotion to the royal family. Ankhat had placed them in the centre of the battle-line, in hopes that their example would inspire the rest.
He had twenty-five thousand men in all, including lower, placing his palm against the ground, and felt the tremors quicken into a grinding, surf-like rumble.
He recognised it at once. It was the sound of stone scraping against stone, of hands pushing aside hundreds of mortuary slabs or forcing open long-sealed doors. An instant later the noise was echoing among the tombs as the risen dead burst from their resting places and lurched forth into the night.
Skeletal feet scraped and clicked over the rocky ground. Ushoran began to see figures moving stiffly among the tombs; bony shapes clad in rags and patches of grave mould, with pinpoints of greenish light gleaming in the depths of their eye sockets. They were the corpses of the city’s poor, laid to rest in crude stone mausoleums and bereft of the grave goods that Lahmia’s wealthy citizens were buried with. Though they bore no weapons and carried no armour, there were thousands of them, sweeping past Ushoran in a lurching, staggering tide, heading towards the unsuspecting enemy camp.
The Lord of Masks let out a low, hungry growl and let the tide carry him along. Behind him, the chilling cries of jackals filled the air, drawn by the smell of rotten flesh. They loped along in the wake of the skeletal army, jaws agape, as if sensing the carrion feast to come.
Horns sounded, echoing wildly from the north. Alcadizzar straightened, his dinner forgotten, wine cup halfway to his mouth.
Prince Heru sat bolt upright from the narrow cot where he’d been napping. Oil lamps filled the king’s campaign tent with warm, steady light; a trio of braziers had been lit to stave off the night’s chill. The Rasetran glanced sharply about, taking his bearings. “Those are our horns,” he said with growing alarm.
Alcadizzar nodded. He sat at one of the two large tables set to one side of the tent, where a large map depicting Lahmia and the surrounding area had been laid out and marked with the dispositions of the army. He’d been certain that a night attack was coming. Neferata had nothing to gain by holding the walls and letting her smaller force be decimated by weeks of fighting. A night attack, on the other hand, offered advantages. Aside from the potential of surprise, her troops would not have to worry as much about Alcadizzar’s archers and she and her monstrous allies could intervene directly in the fight.
There was also the danger of a simultaneous attack from the city’s necropolis. He had to assume that if Neferata could defy death, much like Nagash had done, then she could command the dead as well. Against that possibility, he had given the battle-hardened Rasetrans the job of securing the army’s left flank. In the centre, facing the city’s western gate—and the likeliest route of attack by the Lahmians—h
e had placed Ka-Sabar’s Iron Legion. On the right, close enough to offer support but otherwise out of the way, Alcadizzar had placed the troublesome Zandri infantry and mercenaries. The Numasi cavalry and the desert horsemen were held in reserve, as well as the Tomb Guard and the much smaller contingents of troops from Khemri and Mahrak.
Heru leapt to his feet, swiftly buckling on his sword. Outside, shouted orders and cries of alarm filled the air. “What in the name of the gods happened to our pickets?”
“Dead, most like,” Alcadizzar replied. “The night belongs to Neferata and her ilk. Or so they think.” He studied the map one last time, committing the placement of units to memory, then rose and pulled his own sword from its hook on the nearest tent-pole.
“Let’s not waste time on what’s gone wrong,” the king continued. “We suspected something like this was going to happen. Remember the battle plan.” Buckling on his sword, he rushed to the tent flap. “Runner!” he called.
In moments, a young boy from Khemri appeared, his eyes wide with excitement. “Yes, great one?”
“Get to the Lybarans and tell them to get their catapults to work on the left flank. Go!”
The boy bowed quickly and dashed from the tent, narrowly avoiding Faisr, who was rushing to find the king. The great chieftain’s face was grim.
“The left flank is under attack,” he said. “Lahmia’s necropolis has given up its dead, and they are marching on us in vast numbers!”
Alcadizzar had never heard Faisr sound worried in his entire life. The realisation sent a chill down the king’s spine, but he tried to remember old Jabari’s teachings and push the fear aside. “Take your riders and flank the corpses,” he said, in as steady a tone as he could muster. “Find the sorcerer that’s controlling them. Go!”
The great chieftain nodded curtly and hurried back out into the night. Alcadizzar turned to Heru. “Let’s go!”
03 - Nagash Immortal Page 39
