Faisr shook himself from his momentary reverie with a fearsome curse. “Loose!” he roared at his men.
The order galvanised the tribesmen. Four hundred bows drew back as one, and a moment later the air was full of hissing black-fletched arrows. The riders were all expert shots, hand-picked from among the tribes. The shrieking maidens were hit dozens of times; both fell, struck through the heart, their bodies tumbling limply to the ground.
An uneasy silence fell. Neferata came to a stop well beyond bowshot, hands at her sides. Alcadizzar straightened in the saddle. “Wait here,” he said gravely.
Faisr gave the king a shocked stare. “Are you mad?” he exclaimed. “She deserves no better than the other two got.”
But the king shook his head. “No. This one thing I have to do myself.”
Alcadizzar spurred his horse forwards. Off in the distance, he could see more troops converging on the scene: warriors of Ka-Sabar and Rasetra on the left, and a ragged force of Lahmian infantry on the right. Neither side was close enough to interfere.
The king reined in, some thirty yards from the waiting queen, and slid from the saddle. Drawing his sword, Alcadizzar went to face her.
She stood, silent and still, and watched him approach. The closer Alcadizzar came, the more he began to doubt the wisdom of his decision. Could he withstand her power? The gifts of the elixir were long gone, now. He had only his strength of will and his courage to sustain him—just like every one of the hundreds of dead men who littered the field around him.
He came to within ten yards of her and stopped, not daring to get any closer. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Alcadizzar felt his mouth go dry. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. How was that possible? Even the drops of blood that glistened on her cheek seemed to accentuate her features, like a spray of brilliant rubies.
Neferata’s smile widened and set its hooks in his heart. Her voice was dark and rich, like spring honey.
“You never should have left,” she said. “All those wasted years, and see how it all ends?” She spread her arms. “Here we are, back to where we began.”
Alcadizzar felt a brief spark of anger at Neferata’s tone. He clung to it desperately, like a man lost in a cold and empty wasteland. “You think to tempt me now? Here? Amidst all this death and horror? You have much to answer for, Neferata.”
“I answer to no one,” Neferata replied haughtily. “That is the privilege of a queen.” She gestured at the carnage around her. “And this? This means as much or as little as we wish it to.”
Alcadizzar shook his head. “Every ruler in Nehekhara is watching us,” he said, his voice full of scorn. “If I accepted what you offer, they would kill us both.”
“They wouldn’t,” Neferata said. “Kneel to me. Accept my gift and they will clamour for it as well. Become my consort, and see how quickly they sheathe their blades and beg for my forgiveness.” She held out her hand to him. “It’s not too late, Alcadizzar. Take my hand and the world will be ours.”
For a fleeting moment, it all made perfect sense. Alcadizzar looked into Neferata’s dark eyes and saw the desire burning there. She reached out to him. His gaze fell to her bloodstained hand—and the sight of it reminded him of all the men who had cheered his name only a week before, but now lay dead in the field around him. His anger returned, scouring the queen’s glamour from his mind.
Alcadizzar raised his sword. “Take your gifts with you to the grave,” he said. “I want no part of them.”
Neferata grew suddenly, unnaturally still. The smile faded from her face. As Alcadizzar watched, the desire in her eyes transformed into something sharp and cruel.
Suddenly, she was right in front of him, screeching in fury, her talons raking at his face. Fiery pain exploded across his left cheek. The king was hurled backwards, hitting the rocky ground hard enough to knock all the wind out of him.
Alcadizzar’s mind reeled. It had been too long since he’d tasted Neferata’s elixir. He was nowhere near as fast as he’d once been. Neferata, on the other hand, was both swifter and stronger than he’d imagined possible. A moment after he’d hit the ground she was looming over him again. An iron-hard blow from her open hand swatted the sword from his numbed fingers; a second one struck him across the face and stunned him nearly senseless.
On your feet, boy! Get up! The voice of Haptshur, his old battlefield tutor, echoed in his head. Unable to breathe, scarcely able to see, he rolled in the direction of the blows and lashed out with his right leg as hard as he could. The kick connected with Neferata’s leg and knocked the queen off her feet. Still moving, Alcadizzar scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled after his lost sword.
He nearly made it. The blade was only a few feet away, lying atop a knot of bloodstained corpses. Alcadizzar lunged for it—just as a hand closed painfully about his ankle. Neferata jerked him backwards like a hound on a leash, dragging his chest, arms and face over the rough ground.
Snarling, the king lashed out with his free leg, but missed. His flailing hands closed on the wooden haft of a dropped javelin. Gripping it with bloodied hands, Alcadizzar twisted onto his back and flung it at Neferata with all his strength. She saw it coming at the last moment and tried to knock it aside with her left hand; instead of striking her in the chest, the bronze point hit her in the shoulder, forcing its way between the iron scales and sinking deep into the flesh beneath.
Neferata hissed in rage, groping for the haft of the javelin with her off-hand to pull it free. Alcadizzar twisted in her grip, wrenching his ankle painfully as he fumbled among the corpses for another weapon. He saw another wooden haft jutting out from beneath a nearby body and seized it. Alcadizzar wrenched it free, and found himself gripping a gore-spattered hand axe. With a yell, he swiped at Neferata’s hand, chopping deep into her wrist and nearly cutting off his own foot in the process. The queen let out a shriek of rage, her nerveless fingers losing their grip around Alcadizzar’s ankle.
Bounding to his feet with a roar, the king hurled himself at Neferata, hacking savagely at her with the axe. The bronze blade rasped and rang against the queen’s iron armour, ripping scales free and scoring the thick leather beneath. More blows fell upon her arms, shoulders and neck, but her armour turned aside the worst of the impacts. Still, Alcadizzar did not relent, driving the queen inexorably backwards as he searched for an opening to deliver a fatal blow. He struck her twice more, tearing into her armour, and Neferata staggered, her foot catching on a body sprawled in her path. Before she could recover, the king lunged forwards and struck her across the side of the head. The axe blade bit deep, cracking bone from temple to jaw and snapping her head around from the force of the blow.
The wound would have been enough to kill a normal man outright. Neferata staggered, her ruined armour flapping loosely about her torso. Alcadizzar rushed forwards, aiming a swift, backhand blow at her neck to end the fight.
But the blow never landed. A hand closed about his wrist—Neferata’s right hand, the one he’d nearly severed a moment before. The broken bones and severed muscles had already knit together again.
Neferata’s head came back around. Dark, thick blood flowed from the ghastly wound Alcadizzar had inflicted. Yet even as he watched, the split bone began to close back together. She gave the king a mocking, lopsided smile, then gripped the haft of the axe with her left hand and plucked the weapon from his grip as though he were a child.
Her fist drove into his side, cracking ribs despite his armour and lifting him from his feet. Another blow crashed into the side of Alcadizzar’s head, blinding him with pain. Again and again she struck him, pummelling his shoulders and torso while she held his arm fast with her right hand. All the strength went out of his legs and he collapsed like a rag doll, landing roughly on the ground.
He did not feel Neferata sink down onto him, straddling his waist. Her hands gripped the collar of his bronze scale armour and tore through the thick leather backing as though it were parchment, exposing the ki
ng’s throat. She bent down, her own iron scale vest hanging loosely from her shoulders, until her charnel breath blew coldly against his face.
“I take it back,” she whispered. “All of it. Every gift I ever gave you.”
She seized his chin and forced his head to one side, exposing the pulsing artery in his neck. Alcadizzar tried to speak, but only managed a strangled grunt. His hands fumbled weakly at his waist.
“What do you know of the grave?” Neferata murmured. “I have stood upon the threshold of death and glimpsed what lies on the other side. Do you know what waits there? Darkness. Nothing more.” She bent down further, until her lips brushed lightly against his throat. “Think on that, as the light fades from your eyes.”
Alcadizzar scarcely felt the tips of her fangs sink into his skin. His concentration was focussed on one thing only: gripping the hilt of the jewelled dagger thrust into his belt. With the last of his strength he pulled the blade free and drove it into Neferata’s side, piercing her heart.
“No!” Ankhat shouted, watching from a distance as Neferata’s body went rigid, then toppled over onto her side. Moonlight winked balefully from the ruby-studded hilt of the knife that jutted from her ribs.
At the same moment, the enemy let out a roar—part cheer, part horrified shout—and the horsemen spurred their mounts, racing towards the fallen combatants. When they moved, the enemy infantry on their left moved as well, scrambling and stumbling over the bodies of the slain in an effort to reach the spot where Alcadizzar and Neferata lay tangled together.
“The queen!” Ankhat roared. “To the queen!”
The last survivors of the royal guard—fewer than sixty men, every one of them wounded to one degree or another and exhausted to the bone—let out a defiant shout and charged, true to their oaths to the last. The survivors of the remaining spear companies took up the shout as well and within moments they were running across the battlefield as well.
The enemy cavalry reached the pair moments before everyone else. Robed riders leapt from their saddles and went at once to Alcadizzar, seizing him by the arms and dragging him towards safety. A half-dozen more drew sabres and made for Neferata, clearly intending to make sure she never rose again.
Ankhat leapt among the swordsmen, his iron blade flickering. Two men fell at once, their throats slashed open, while the others tried to encircle him and strike from different angles. An arrow thudded into his shoulder; he snarled like a cornered animal and took a swordsman’s arm off at the elbow.
The royal guard caught up to him seconds later, charging at the mounted warriors with polearms levelled. Horses reared and screamed; arrows flew, and men fell dying on both sides. Ankhat despatched another swordsman with a cut to the head and drove the rest back, away from the fallen queen. The Lahmian spearmen rushed in, brandishing their spears and trying to reach Alcadizzar, only to be met by the oncoming enemy infantry. Men stabbed and swore, tearing at one another like starving animals fighting over a bone. All sense of order dissolved into a vicious, four-sided brawl.
Ankhat cut a man’s legs out from under him and pushed his way to Neferata’s side. Two enemy soldiers grabbed her body by the ankles, dragging her roughly towards them; with a shout, the immortal lunged forwards, slicing the hands off one man and driving the other back. More arrows hissed past. Each one found a mark in the swirling mob, but Ankhat couldn’t say whether they hit friend or foe.
The enemy infantry drove back the Lahmians, creating a wall of flesh and metal between them and Alcadizzar. Ankhat didn’t care about the fallen king. All he could think about was keeping Neferata out of enemy hands. He stood over her, slashing and stabbing at every man who came too close.
More enemy troops were arriving every moment, closing in from both left and right. Before much longer, they would be surrounded and then none of them would escape.
The enemy pressed in around him. His blade never stopped moving, trying to hold back the tide. Horns sounded off behind Ankhat and to his left. More enemy cavalry were closing in. The end was nearly at hand.
Ankhat took his eyes off the enemy for just a moment, glancing down at Neferata’s body. They would want her head for a trophy, he knew. Perhaps at least he could deny them that.
He raised his sword to strike—and then, without warning, came an eruption of screams and shouts from behind the enemy infantry to his immediate left.
It was as though a storm was tearing through the tightly packed enemy soldiers. Ankhat saw pieces of men flung through the air: severed limbs, helmeted heads, hands still clutching the hilts of weapons, all trailing streamers of blood. The killing was swift and relentless, carving its way step by step towards where Neferata lay.
Suddenly, the enemy horsemen that accompanied the king hauled on their reins and spurred away, shouting in confusion at the unexpected attack. The enemy infantry saw that and panicked, scattering in every direction to escape the fate of their comrades. The surviving Lahmians—barely a handful of guardsmen and a few score others—drew back in a tight circle around Ankhat, staring fearfully in the direction of the slaughter and wondering if they were next.
The last of the enemy soldiers drew back like a curtain, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered man with pale skin and close-cropped black hair. He was armoured in nothing more than a dirty, knee-length leather kilt and a sleeveless jerkin, of the type favoured by those who lived and hunted in the southern jungle. The man wielded a pair of huge, dripping khopeshes in his scarred hands; every inch of him was streaked and stippled in gore. His face was handsome but severe, with a square chin and a thin-lipped mouth set in a permanent scowl. He strode fearlessly towards the Lahmians, heedless of the thousands of enemy warriors surrounding him.
Ankhat stared at the man in wonder. “Abhorash?”
Lamashizzar’s former champion and captain of the royal guard strode up to Ankhat and took in the situation at a glance. “Get the queen out of here,” he said simply, as though he’d never been gone from the city a day, let alone the last hundred and seventy years. “I will cover your retreat.”
Abhorash spoke in a voice that brooked no dissent. The four surviving royal guards leapt to obey, lifting Neferata’s body and shielding it with their own. If any of them realised that she was not the queen that they knew and served, they gave no sign whatsoever. The spearmen were already falling back towards the ruined western gate in a ragged mob. Back across the field, the horse archers saw their prey escaping and shouted angrily. Bowstrings hummed and arrows plunged towards the guardsmen holding the queen.
Abhorash’s twin swords flashed, weaving a web of flickering bronze, and knocked every one of the arrows aside.
The horsemen gaped in shock. No one attempted to stop the Lahmians after that.
Every movement was agony. Groaning between clenched teeth, Ushoran dragged himself another torturous foot, reaching the summit of the wooded hill just to the east of the city necropolis.
The sounds of battle had faded some time ago. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours; Ushoran could no longer say for sure. The pain pushed such trivial details aside. But there was no question of who had won. Of that much he was certain. Which was why he was trying to get as far away from the city as he could.
The fire had eaten into him from his head to his calves, burning away his hair and much of his skin, and cooking the flesh beneath. When the torches had hit him, he could think of nothing but running, as though the fire was something he could actually escape. That had only fanned the flames more. He had pounded at them until his hands were scorched and raw, but nothing would put them out. Finally, after running for what seemed like ages, his legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed on the ground, howling in agony, and waited for the flames to finish him.
Yet he did not die. Eventually, the fire burned itself out, but the final death did not come. Eventually, through the blinding haze of pain, he realised that he could move his legs a bit. His body, despite the damage, was slowly healing itself. Ushoran didn’t know whethe
r to laugh or cry.
When he came to his senses, he realised he was no longer alone. A pack of jackals surrounded the dip in the rocky ground, studying him with flat, yellow eyes. Apparently they couldn’t decide if he was carrion or not. He wasn’t all that certain either. But he knew that, sooner or later, it would be dawn. If the noonday sun didn’t finish what the fire began, it would only be a matter of time before some enemy patrol stumbled onto him and chopped off his head. And so he’d crawled, foot by foot, out of the depression and towards the hills to the west, in search of a place to hide.
Now, having reached the top of the hill, the immortal rolled weakly onto his side and looked back the way he’d come. Ushoran could see a vast field of bones stretching from the edge of the necropolis to nearly the centre of the enemy camp. At some point, W’soran’s ritual had failed and his army had literally fallen apart where it stood. From the angle where he lay, he could just see the western gate; when he glimpsed the destruction there, he suspected what had occurred. He wondered if the necromancer had managed to escape the massacre.
There was no sign of Neferata or Ankhat, but the ground between the camp and the western gate was piled with corpses. It was clear that both sides had suffered terrible losses, but in the end the invaders had prevailed. Even now, columns of troops were marching down the trade road and through the rubble of the western gate; columns of smoke were rising from Lahmia’s western districts as the sack of the city began.
Abruptly, the smothering darkness receded. Neferata opened her eyes with a gasp that very nearly rose to a scream. She fell back against a cold marble floor, her entire body trembling with the shock of what she’d endured.
Ankhat knelt beside her, his face grave. A ruby-hilted dagger hung from one hand. With a scowl, he tossed it aside. “You’re safe,” he said to her. “For now, at least. We thought it best to wait until we got here before doing something about the knife.”
Neferata glanced wildly about. She was in a shadowy, vaulted chamber, far from the battlefield. “Where are we?” she managed to say.
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