‘Them,’ Anmar said, her voice filled with horror.
Neferata suddenly recalled the odd stone dragon head which had protruded from the lofty upper peaks of the mountain. It had seemed out of place at the time, but its purpose was plain now. ‘Clever, clever creatures,’ she snarled. Then, ‘They’re cutting our forces in half!’ she said, gesturing towards the ceiling with her sword. ‘We have to destroy that thing.’
‘The dead don’t mind it,’ Khaled protested, his eyes wide as he stared at the hissing, bubbling rock.
‘Of course not, they’re dead,’ Morath nearly shrieked. One hand was pressed to his face. ‘But they can be destroyed by it easily enough! I can’t revivify melted bone.’
Khaled snarled and shared a look with Redzik. The Strigoi was rangy and hawk-like and was a seasoned warrior, lacking Vorag’s bluster or Gashnag’s pomposity. He nodded and gestured to two of his fellows. ‘Jirek, Dinic, get up there,’ he growled. The two vampires hesitated, looking at their fallen fellow, who had been dragged from the burning liquid but whose healing was slow to begin. He mewled piteously, and his face looked like one overlarge raw wound. Redzik grunted and cast his gaze at Zandor. ‘What about you?’
‘I think not,’ the ajal said, stepping back, his hands raised.
Neferata snorted. ‘The courage of Strigos is legendary,’ she said. ‘I’ll go.’
‘Not alone,’ Anmar said. Neferata looked at the girl for a moment, and then nodded. Khaled growled.
‘Foolishness. Fine, Jirek, Dinic, come with me, the rest of you organise some sort of defence – the dwarfs won’t sit idle. They’ll try to crush us between the hammer and the anvil. We’ll soon have every warrior in this rat-hole at our throats.’ For a moment, Khaled shed the lethargy of the predator and was once more the Kontoi he had been in life. He looked at Neferata. ‘After you, my lady,’ he said.
‘Too kind,’ Neferata murmured. The magma had cooled into a black splotch across the snow. Bone limbs twitched as it hardened. She stepped lightly across it and began to ascend towards the peak, moving as swiftly as she was able. Anmar followed close at her heels and the others just behind. The snow had been melted away, revealing the carefully crafted runnels which had been installed to conduct the flow of the magma. The ingenuity of the dwarfs was impressive. They were a people who thought defensively, preparing for onslaughts which might never come. Neferata could respect that sort of cunning.
The wind smashed against them as they climbed, and the snow fell in great clumps. They didn’t feel the cold, but it played merry havoc with their senses, rendering sight, smell and sound unreliable. Nonetheless, the vampires climbed quickly, following the runnel. Neferata caught a scrape of stone on stone and reached out to touch the edge of the runnel. It trembled slightly. ‘Take cover!’ she shouted, throwing herself to the side. The others did as she did even as a blistering explosion of fiery liquid sluiced down from on high, throwing up fumes and steam. The Strigoi, Dinic, wasn’t fast enough and he howled as the magma caught him.
Neferata watched as Dinic staggered to his feet, enshrouded in burning liquid. The magma seemed to reach out and enfold him in molten fingers. The vampire’s screams rose in pitch as his flesh crumbled off his bones. Tearing at himself, Dinic stumbled back and fell into the runnel, dissolving even as he hit the magma flow.
‘That’s done it,’ Neferata said. She sprang to her feet as the last of the magma slid away and dropped into the runnel. ‘They know we’re coming – hurry!’ The stone of the runnel was painfully hot and her flesh reddened and blistered as she ran. She ignored the pain. It was an easier path than climbing the mountain, and more effective. The stone maw of the dragon rose over her. She leapt up, slithering between its char-black fangs and down its throat.
She only had moments before what she was doing would go from a brilliant idea to a bad one. She hoped the others were following close behind. She hurtled through the dragon’s throat and a very surprised set of features filled her vision. The dwarf jerked back with an oath that was cut short as her sword found his throat. She whipped the blade out, decapitating him even as she emerged from the tunnel and into the hidden tower.
It was a circular stone room, with flues set into the walls and a number of heavy pipes and sluice-works crisscrossing the walls and ceiling. It stank of sulphur and raw heat. Five dwarfs were there to greet her. Only one reacted quickly, grabbing a handy hammer and swinging it towards her head. In the cramped confines of the tower, she had little room to manoeuvre and was forced to let the weapon connect. Her skull rang and she swung wildly, driving the warrior back. He spat something in Khazalid and one of the others dived for a crossbow leaning against the wall. Neferata hurled her sword, pinning the would-be crossbowman to the wall in mid-flight. With a snarl, she dived on the hammer-wielder, bearing him to the ground, her vision still swimming from the force of the hammer-blow. The others closed in.
The rock ceiling cracked and shuddered above them, causing the dwarfs to look up in shock. Neferata concentrated on her prey, bashing the dwarf’s skull against the floor until his head cracked like an egg and what was within slopped out. Even as she rose, the ceiling came away in great chunks, ripped apart by Khaled and Jirek. Anmar dived in through one of the newly-made holes, and her sword flashed in a tight arc, gutting one of the dwarfs. The others reacted by fleeing for the trapdoor which led down from their perch.
‘Grab them!’ Neferata spat. Khaled sprang past her, his talons tangling in one of the dwarf’s braids and hair. He hauled the burly shape off its feet and swung the dwarf around, hurling him out through the gap in the roof to smash himself lifeless on the mountain-side below. Jirek caught the other even as he descended, tackling him with a scream like a hungry tiger. Dwarf and vampire tumbled down into whatever was below. Khaled almost followed, but Anmar grabbed him.
‘Wait!’ she said.
There was a concert of screams from below. Neferata ducked her head down, and her lips writhed back from her fangs in disgust. Jirek and his prey had blundered into the delivery system for the magma. Specially treated pipes had burst and the room swam with heat as magma sprayed and dripped, coating walls, floor and combatants liberally.
Neferata retreated. ‘Fool,’ she said, kicking the stone trapdoor into place. The floor was already growing warm. ‘That artifice would have been useful.’
‘Jirek was more useful,’ Khaled said, glaring at her.
‘Debatable,’ Neferata said. ‘Nonetheless, we must make sure that there are no other surprises waiting for us. The dawi are cunning, and I’d rather they didn’t find a way to make the mountain vomit its guts all over us.’ She jumped lightly onto the wall and climbed out onto the roof.
The panorama of the Worlds Edge Mountains spread out around her, vast and uncaring of the war begun in its depths. Above, the sky was the colour of tar and the snow spiralled down like tears. She reached out, setting her talons on the horizon, even as she had done as a girl, visualising what would be hers. With a grunt, she drew her hand back. Tossing her head, she brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes and spotted the black shape of a river slithering out away from the mountain. She smiled.
Khaled and Anmar joined her a moment later. ‘We destroyed the pipes and devices. This thing is no threat now,’ Khaled said.
‘Oh, well done, dog of Mourkain,’ Neferata said. ‘You do your master proud.’
Khaled grabbed her arm. ‘I would have done the same for you if you had let me,’ he said. ‘I would have served you forever,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.
‘You serve none but your own lusts, my Kontoi. I saw that clearly in Bel Aliad, before I first kissed you,’ Neferata said, placing her fingers along his cheek. ‘And I will acknowledge no desire save my own.’ Her claws scraped his face, opening the flesh to the kiss of the cold wind. Khaled stepped back, releasing her. His eyes hardened.
‘Ushoran says different,’ he sneered, ges
turing to her throat.
Neferata smiled softly and licked his blood from her fingers. ‘What he says and what you hear are two different things, my sweet, savage, sad son. And that you never saw that is one of the reasons why I am glad to be rid of your tedious love.’
Khaled snarled, but Neferata turned away and leapt off the tower. She dropped into the snow and started back down.
The dwarfs did not remain idle after the failure of their dragon-weapon. Neferata soon found herself wishing that they had, if only to provide respite from the dangerous tedium that followed. Two weeks passed in the wake of the dwarfs’ flight into the lower regions of their realm, but, like all vermin, they refused to stay in their holes.
Instead, they had displayed the unguessed intricacies of their craftsmanship. There were apparently innumerable hidden passageways and concealed doors and the dwarfs had sallied forth three times in strength, pummelling the dead before retreating into their hidden enclaves. Others had crept from unseen points to set off explosions and fire crossbows into the vampires and ghouls. They had already lost four of the Strigoi vampires to such tactics, and the remaining warriors were becoming unsettled and impatient. When not fending off these attacks, Neferata and the Strigoi passed the time in fruitless debate.
‘There must be more than one way in,’ Morath said testily. He looked half-dead, and weird lights flickered beneath his skin. He sagged in his saddle. The stink of exhaustion seeped from his pores.
‘There are a number of ways in. Finding them, however, is another matter,’ Neferata said, resting on her haunches, her chin pressed to the pommel of her sword, her fingers draped over the hilt. It was not the most regal position, but it suited her mood. She stared out at the blizzard.
‘Who says we have to find them, eh?’ Zandor said. ‘We just set those bone-bags we brought with us to chipping away at this anthill until we make a passage.’
‘Do you have any concept of how much power and time that would require?’ Morath snapped. ‘No, of course you don’t.’
Zandor growled at the necromancer, his normally handsome features lengthening into something lupine. ‘Watch your tone, meat, or I’ll–’
‘You’ll what?’ Neferata said, without turning from the snow. ‘In case you had forgotten, Zandor, I require Morath’s services more than yours, indispensible as they are.’
‘And you’ll hold your tongue, witch,’ Zandor said, grinning at her in a lopsided fashion. ‘You’re only here because Ushoran still professes to respect your abilities. But if you give us trouble–’
‘Your head will be the first to touch the dust,’ Anmar said, tapping Zandor’s throat with the flat of her sword. The other Strigoi snarled like a pack of dogs. Neferata’s handmaidens drew closer to her. She herself neither moved, nor paid attention to the ongoing confrontation.
‘Quiet!’ Khaled roared. He looked at Neferata. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘The river,’ Neferata said. ‘The river is the way in. It travels beneath the mountain.’
Morath’s eyes lit up with realisation. ‘It might be possible, yes. A small group, no more than a hundred,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘No. No it won’t work. My abilities are great, but the strain…’
‘Not you. Me,’ Neferata said, rising to her feet.
‘Your grasp of the necessary magics is incomplete,’ Morath said slowly.
‘Then complete it,’ Neferata said. ‘Teach me, Morath. You will find me a most apt pupil…’
‘No!’ Khaled barked.
‘Quiet, Arabyan,’ Zandor snapped. ‘Why shouldn’t we? If the witch wishes to leave the glory to us while she sneaks in the back door, let her. A few tricks might help her distract the dwarfs for more than a few moments before they take her traitorous head.’
‘Your support is noted and appreciated, Zandor,’ Neferata said. ‘It will take time, of course.’ She looked at Khaled. ‘But I’m sure we can find something to occupy our days and weeks, no?’
He made a face and looked at the immense inner doors that sealed the rest of the hold away from the entry-chamber. The Upper Deep was theirs, but getting into the lower levels would be difficult. More than difficult, in fact; near impossible, even with the forces at their disposal, unless something tipped the balance in their favour.
Neferata inclined her head as Khaled glared at her. ‘What would you suggest?’ he grated.
‘Come, come, my Kontoi, surely you have taken part in sieges before?’ Neferata said. ‘There are things which must be done.’
His eyes lit up with understanding. ‘As ever, my queen, you are correct,’ he said. He grimaced a moment later as he realised what he had said. Neferata gave no sign that she had heard.
In the days that followed, the dead fell easily into old routines formed in life. Roving patrols of skeletal horsemen rode through the claws of the weather that gripped the mountains, their ancient bronze armour green with verdigris and sheathed in ice. Corpse-wolves loped through the scrub forests of the mountain slopes, hunting for the merest whiff of warm blood. And the ranks of the numberless dead swelled day by day as Morath pulled them from their crude graves.
Neferata had made her camp out of the grip of the blizzard that continued to batter the region, within the entrance hall. A pavilion tent had been erected by fleshless hands and filled with luxuries, brought specifically for that purpose from Mourkain. Even if she was being forced to play general for Ushoran, there was no reason she couldn’t do so in comfort. She studied the old scrolls while lying on a pile of cushions, handing them to her handmaidens when she had finished. Of them all, only Naaima seemed to have grasped the art of the magics as well as she, but the others would learn in time.
Morath stood in the centre of the tent, warming his hands over a brazier. He wore heavy furs over his slender form and dark circles weighted down his eyes. The tent flap was opened and Redzik, one of the Strigoi, stepped in, snow falling from him in clumps. ‘We’ve found it,’ he said.
Neferata tossed aside a scroll. ‘Where is it?’
‘Just where you said,’ Redzik said. ‘The wolves sniffed it out. The river goes right into the mountain’s guts.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s iced over, though. Probably why there’s no guard on it. No telling how deep the ice runs…’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Neferata said, stretching. ‘It’s time.’ She looked at Morath. ‘You know what to do?’
‘Knowing and accomplishing are two different things,’ the necromancer spat. He shivered. Neferata reached out and gently stroked his cheek with the edge of her palm. Morath shuddered. She smiled gently.
‘I have faith, my sweet Morath, as should you. After all, does not a god stand at our side?’ Like the rest of them, he had stood frozen as Ushoran became something terrible. Morath’s prediction had come true, and he had done nothing to prevent it.
‘I’m... I am sorry,’ he croaked, after a short silence. He looked away.
‘Men are always sorry, after the fact,’ Neferata said, running her fingers across his shoulders. ‘But it is not you from whom I will accept an apology. You’re a dog, Morath, and a dog can be forgiven biting at the whim of its master.’
He jerked as if she had struck him. ‘Mourkain–’ he began hoarsely.
‘Mourkain would have been a paradise,’ she said, turning to follow Redzik out of the tent. Naaima and her handmaidens paced after her, checking their weapons and armour.
‘You do not have to do this,’ Anmar said as Neferata approached. ‘Naaima could go, or even Layla,’ she suggested, taking Neferata’s hand.
Neferata was silent for a moment. Vampires could not feel regret; or, rather, none she had known had ever displayed such. But what was writ on Anmar’s face was as close to it as she thought that they could get.
‘And what would I do, little leopard?’ Neferata said. ‘Would you have me sit and sulk in my tent? Or would you rather me sit and pon
der the intricacies of your brother’s betrayal?’
The remark was spiteful, and Anmar took it as such. She pulled back. Neferata hesitated, wanting to reassure her, but knowing that there was no purpose to such a gesture. She was going to kill Khaled and Anmar too, if she interfered. She would kill all of the traitors and fools. Instead, she said, ‘You have made your choice, little leopard. You have chosen your brother over me.’
‘Could I do otherwise?’
‘Only you can say,’ Neferata said, turning away. ‘Blood calls to blood and like to like. I made a mistake with your brother. I should have left him dead on the floor of his secret room, and taken only you. But even then, I knew I could not separate you. It seems nothing will.’
She strode away, noting Khaled approaching as she did so. She wondered whether he had heard. From his expression, she guessed that he had. A momentary surge of satisfaction lifted her mood as she stepped outside. The wind and cold enveloped her and she welcomed it.
Besides her handmaidens, a troop of skeletal horsemen and spearmen, their bones coated in glistening ice, accompanied her. A token force and one she intended to leave near the river. There would be plenty of dead within the hold for her to manipulate, if she were right.
The dwarfs entombed their dead, as W’soran’s studies of Mourkain’s depths had shown. There were generations upon generations, going back to the first inhabitants of the hold, all waiting for her gentle summons to march to war against their kin. They would catch the dawi in a pincer, between two walls of bone and metal.
When they reached the river, she found that it had indeed frozen solid, just as Redzik said. Neferata stood on a bluff overlooking the river, Naaima and Iona beside her. They had left the others below, out of sight, with the dead. Neferata sniffed the wind. Several of the corpse-wolves were prowling nearby, their gait awkward and uneven.
‘We’ll set the dead to shattering the river. Once we have a hole, we’ll go down,’ she said. ‘We will awaken the dead of the hold even as the Strigoi batter their way in. If need be, we will of course open the doors for them again. Eventually.’
Neferata Page 30
