Crossbow bolts rattled off the stone and their armour as more dwarfs moved to stop them. One of her handmaidens, a brunette creature called Sabine, was punched backwards, a bolt standing at attention between her breasts. She writhed and shrieked as she squirmed on the ground, clawing at her chest. Neferata ignored her follower’s plight as she bounded towards the gate mechanism. She hit the crank with her shoulder, throwing her whole body into the act. The immense chain that raised the counter-weights which would open the door shook as she hit it.
Crossbow bolts sprouted from her back and her arms. She gasped in pain, but resisted the urge to turn on her attackers or retreat. More bolts smashed home, and she slumped, coughing blood. Yet with a grinding roar, the gates to the inner deep began to swing open. Neferata rolled off the mechanism and fell to the floor as the gigantic ghouls that led the Strigoi advance ripped the doors the rest of the way open and admitted the undead host.
The sounds of battle filled the air and she closed her eyes. The crossbow bolts that had pierced her began to fall free one by one as she encouraged her metamorphic flesh to expel them. Hooves clopped close. ‘A handy trick,’ someone said. Neferata cracked an eye.
Morath looked down at her, his blistered face twisted into a smile. Neferata pushed herself to her feet. ‘Was it? I have so many that I lose track,’ she said. She turned. The dwarfs were stubborn, but they were outnumbered and unprepared. Their horns were already calling for a retreat.
‘Your plan worked, I see,’ Morath said, leaning forwards across the pommel of his saddle. He didn’t ask how she had survived, or what had occurred since her disappearance.
‘Of course it did,’ she said, snatching up her sword and sheathing it. ‘They’ll fall back to the Deeping Stair. We need to harry them, to keep them from regrouping here. I want them running.’
‘Easily done, now that we have some room,’ Morath said, snatching at his reins and turning his mount. The dead pushed forwards, ignoring the impotent fury of their foes. The dwarfs gave ground grudgingly, but give ground they did. They had been thrown off their guard by Neferata’s sudden entry, and the Strigoi’s advent had prevented them from reforming the shield wall.
Corpse-wolves and mummified horsemen galloped past her, following the retreating dwarfs. She let them go. The army would be spread out across the hold, if she judged Khaled correctly. There would be more bastions of resistance than just here, but here was the main one. Here, at the heart of the hold, was where Borri would be. And Khaled wanted Borri. Khaled needed the king’s head and beard to establish himself as Ushoran’s right hand.
Her Kontoi had thrown himself into the snake-pit with his eyes wide open, and he knew well what would keep him from getting bitten. He would rise far. But never to where he desired. Not now. Not with the crown sitting on Ushoran’s brow, dictating the commands of a being better forgotten.
She smiled. She had seen the web for what it was, in the end, and seen the crown for the spider it pretended not to be. A trap by any other name; it was the soul of another dead man, trying to force her into his shadow.
Kings, undying or otherwise, had no use for a queen who spoke her mind. And Neferata had no use for kings. And soon, she would have no need to fear them. That was, if she didn’t die in the process.
Mounted on skeletal steeds, Khaled and Zandor rode towards her. Trust the Strigoi to stay close to his greatest rival. Both men displayed surprise at seeing her, and the latter showed a certain amount of trepidation. Perhaps it hadn’t been Khaled who had arranged for her to walk into an ambush after all.
‘Hail, my Kontoi,’ Neferata said, plucking a final bolt from her body.
‘I thought–’ Khaled began as he swung down off his steed. Zandor followed suit, frowning.
‘I know what you thought,’ Neferata said. ‘Yet here I am, my Kontoi, coming to your rescue again.’
‘Rescue,’ Khaled repeated, glaring at her.
‘Oh yes, though you don’t deserve it.’ She looked back and forth between them. ‘Which of you was it, I wonder, who decided to let me walk into a trap? Was it you, my Kontoi? Or was it perhaps you, Zandor?’ She leered at the Strigoi, who stepped back. ‘Regardless, the dwarfs are falling back to their final redoubt.’
‘Ushoran will be most pleased,’ Zandor said smugly. ‘You have done well, woman.’
Neferata didn’t reply. Khaled looked at her. ‘They’re retreating to their temples, aren’t they?’ he said, eyes glinting. ‘Zandor and I will take several of the Strigoi and cut them off. We can’t let them scurry into their damnable holes. I would be done with this.’
‘For once, we are of one mind,’ Neferata said. ‘There will be women and children in those temples. I want them alive.’
‘Why?’ Khaled said.
‘Because I have commanded such,’ she said, putting an edge to her words. ‘I intend to offer the dwarfs terms–’
‘What?’ Zandor snarled. ‘Who are you to–?’
‘I am Neferata of Lahmia,’ she snarled, backhanding the Strigoi and knocking him from his feet. She turned her glare on Khaled, pinning him in place before he could draw his sword. ‘That should be reason enough to do as I command. I want them alive, Khaled, alive and unharmed.’
Khaled stepped back and hauled Zandor to his feet. The Strigoi glared at her groggily, but said nothing as Khaled hauled him away. Neferata watched them go, and then said, ‘You can come out now, Anmar.’
The girl stepped out from the shadows of the gateway, her sword gripped loosely in her hand. ‘Who would you have helped, I wonder?’ Neferata said, turning to her. Anmar said nothing. She met Neferata’s eyes, but only for a moment.
‘Have I ever told you about my cousin?’ Neferata said. ‘Her name was–’
‘Yes, you have,’ Anmar said softly. Neferata stopped, nonplussed. ‘Why would you spare them?’
‘The dwarfs?’ Neferata said. Anmar nodded. Neferata smiled thinly. ‘Spite. Ushoran wants them exterminated. Thus, I will spare them.’ That and it would be easier to get the dwarfs to surrender if their loved ones were offered safe passage.
‘Is that why you tried to take the crown?’
Neferata hesitated. ‘Why are you asking this? Yes, girl, I wanted the crown for spite.’
‘Is that why you took me?’ Anmar said, shifting her sword in her grip.
‘I–’ Neferata hesitated again. What had got into the girl? ‘Anmar, you are my little leopard. I took you because I wanted to give you my gift.’ She stepped towards the girl. ‘Anmar–’
‘I must go. My brother will need me,’ Anmar said, slipping past Neferata and speeding after Khaled.
‘What would you have done if she’d helped him?’ Naaima said. Neferata turned and saw her oldest handmaiden picking her way across the bodies of the dead. Before Neferata could speak, Naaima continued. ‘The others are doing as you commanded, never fear. The Strigoi will never see them coming.’
‘Good.’ Neferata peered at her. ‘You will take Morath.’
‘I will be gentle,’ Naaima said, flashing a crooked smile.
Neferata nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt her,’ she said finally. ‘She is as dear to me as my own sister.’
‘So was Khalida,’ Naaima said. ‘And when it was necessary, you snuffed her as if she were a flame.’ Naaima smiled sadly. ‘We are tools, Neferata. You call us sisters, but we are but pieces on your game-board. You collect us and hoard us, and sometimes you spend us. Sometimes you spend us for ambition. Other times, it is for spite.’
Neferata stared at her, stunned. Naaima stepped forwards and took her mistress’s face in her hands and kissed her softly on the cheek. ‘And we love you for it, because we cannot help but to do so. You unmake us as easily as Nagash’s crown threatened to unmake you, and remake us in your image.’ She stepped back and turned away.
Neferat
a watched her go, part of her wanting to batter the sad smile from Naaima’s face. But the other part, the cold, calculating part, merely made her nod. She pushed the distraction of it all aside. She trotted towards the ongoing battle, slowly at first, then picking up speed.
Neferata scanned the stairs with the eye of an experienced general as she ran. She had learned over the centuries to read the ebb and flow of battle as easily as Morath read his mouldy parchments. This was a fighting withdrawal. They had caught the dwarfs by surprise, and there simply weren’t enough of them to face a foe that was seemingly limitless, not to mention fearless. It would be a retreat, then, down to the next level where the final defences were likely already being prepared.
The dwarf rearguard on the Deeping Stair fought with tenacity, but the dead noticed only obstacles, not determination. The sheer number of skeletons and dwarf zombies pulled down the defenders, reducing them from a solid battle-line to struggling, fast-consumed knots of embattled heroes. Rune-weapons blazed in the hands of the mightiest warriors of the hold, and for a moment, just a moment, it seemed as if they might be enough.
King Borri stood amidst his bodyguard. He still held Razek’s axe and he gesticulated with it in the direction of the relentless legions stalking towards the dwarf ranks. Borri was as canny as his son, and the dwarfs of the Silver Pinnacle had fought the dead before. As Neferata watched, a dozen dwarfs ran forwards at Borri’s command, carrying bubbling cauldrons full of pitch. They slung them into the advancing dead. A moment later, crossbow bolts with burning tips were fired over the heads of Borri and his men.
The wide expanse of floor leading to the Deeping Stair exploded into flame. By itself, it wouldn’t have stopped the dead, but it did slow them down enough for the miniature catapults that had been dragged into position on the lower landing to be of use sooner rather than later. Irregular chunks of rock were flung into the air and where they struck, they left a trail of splintered bones and gaps in the ranks.
Morath winced at each impact. Neferata looked up at the necromancer as she reached his side, where he was surrounded by a grave-guard of skeletal horsemen clad in rotting leather and bronze armour that had gone green with age. ‘Pull them back,’ she said. ‘Between the heat and the rocks, the barrow-dead are too vulnerable.’
‘Then what do you suggest we send in their place, harsh language?’ Morath said, not looking at her. The strain of controlling so many dead was plainly visible on his face. Neferata caught sight of Naaima on his other side.
‘No, but there are a wealth of troops they might not be so eager to bounce rocks off,’ she countered, sweeping a hand out to indicate the dwarf dead. Morath blinked. Then he smiled weakly.
‘Ushoran was right to send you,’ he said. His smile faded. ‘I–’ he began, but she waved him to silence.
‘Raise them, necromancer. Set brother against brother. Let’s give our hosts something worthy to record in their pathetic book of complaints, shall we?’
Morath squared his shoulders and took a breath. Neferata felt him pluck the strands of dark magic that clustered near the bodies of the slain with his mind. He raised a hand, his fingers hooked like arthritic claws. Morath had changed much over the past few years. Only traces of his previous handsomeness remained; he was a shrivelled wreck now, but more mighty than he had been. With W’soran’s flight, the burden of Mourkain’s magical needs had fallen on Morath’s shoulders. He had kept the kingdom running, but only just.
In comparison, bringing the newly dead to their feet was as nothing. The dwarfs stirred, ruined mail scratching across stone. She inhaled the strange sickly-sweet scent of over-ripened life. Bloody fingers twitched and heels drummed on the floor. Eyelids peeled back from poached-egg eyes and as one, with a groan, the dead sat up. Gripping their weapons with slack necessity, the dead dwarfs turned as a mass towards Borri’s battleline.
The dirge, when it came, was something of a surprise: a collective song of mourning, slipping from the mouths of every dwarf still breathing. Neferata watched as the dwarfs faced their dead kin, singing their sad slow song, and she felt a moment of what might have been respect. There was no fear there, only sadness. The song rose in volume until the very stones seemed to reverberate with its rhythm.
The passage of the dead beat out the flames. Still, beards and braids caught alight, wreathing the zombies in halos of flame as they stumbled towards their former companions in a grim parody of martial discipline. Neferata heard the Strigoi howling in mockery and disgust filled her. This was a necessity, not a pleasure. In another, better world, the dawi would have been her allies. She glanced at Morath, noting the flat expression on his face.
The necromancer liked this no better than she, she knew. They were both prisoners of Ushoran’s madness, though Morath had chosen that fate willingly. She had offered him a place, and he had turned away out of loyalty to an ideal. ‘I could have been your queen,’ she murmured. Morath looked at her.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, necromancer. Stay back and leave the fighting to those with the thirst for it.’ Neferata trotted after the dwarf dead. She drank in the swirling winds of dark magic as she moved, using it to abate the thirst she felt. She felt her features stretch and sharpen and her muscles harden. She broke into a sprint as the first of the zombies connected with the dwarf battle-line. Others joined her – the Strigoi, shadowed by her own handmaidens, and around them, the war-ghouls of W’soran’s devising, their mammoth tread shaking the floor as they roared out unintelligible challenges to the enemy.
The two forces connected with a thunderclap. The dead were a wave washing over the rock that was the defenders of Karaz Bryn. Dwarfs fell, pulled down by the hands of their fellows or crushed by the hammers of the war-ghouls. Neferata bounded from the ground to a ghoul’s thigh and then off one of the great statues that stood sentinel over the stairs, landing near Borri. She had to force the king to flee. The Strigoi followed her like a pack of ravening hounds, avoiding the press of the fighting in order to reach the king and his guard.
Borri saw her in the instant before she reached him. He pivoted, nearly slicing her nose off with the axe, and then followed up with the hammer he wielded in his other hand, knocking her off her feet. She rolled beneath the feet of the attacking Strigoi as they flung themselves at the king’s guard with bestial abandon. Claws and swords clashed with ancient armour and ancestral hammers and the iron wall of dawi guards disintegrated into a melee within a melee.
Borri’s hammer shattered a Strigoi’s snarling face, sending the vampire hurtling backwards. Neferata ducked under the flailing body and brought her sword around, locking blade to haft with Borri’s hammer. He grunted as he realised her strength and crossed the hammer with the axe, glaring at her between them. ‘Treachery,’ he said. ‘You manlings know nothing but treachery.’
‘War,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Your son understood that.’
‘Razek had many faults,’ Borri said, shoving her back a step. Sweat coated his beard and ran down his seamed face. ‘That does not give you the right to insult him.’
Neferata redoubled her efforts. ‘Surrender, great king, and this can all end. Your son had to die, but your people do not,’ she said.
‘You truly know nothing of us,’ Borri said. His wrists bulged and suddenly the sword was ripped from her hands. The axe struck sparks from the collar and she cursed herself for underestimating the king. If he would not retreat willingly, she would have to force him. With a roar, she threw herself back, allowing two Strigoi who had been circling the fight to leap on the king and bear him down. Borri fell, bellowing in anger.
Neferata scrambled to her feet as those of the king’s guards not already engaged rushed to his aid. Hammers forced the Strigoi back, and a great crest of hair parted the warriors swirling around the king. Grund burst through the press, driving an elbow into a Strigoi’s mouth, shattering fangs.
He roared and chopped down, seve
ring the other Strigoi’s leg at the thigh. The vampire shrilled and fell on top of the burly dwarf. Grund shoved the vampire aside and crushed its skull with his fist. He hacked at it wildly for good measure before turning to face her. ‘I said I’d have your head, witch, and I’ve only ever broken one oath,’ he roared.
‘Grund–’ Borri coughed as his men pulled him to his feet.
‘No!’ Grund snarled. ‘She’s mine, brother. Come, hag! Come, night-stalker! Fight me!’
Neferata wasted no words on the berserker. She didn’t want to kill Borri yet, but this creature would be better off dead. She stepped back, channelling the dark energies that invigorated her as Morath had showed her. She spat a stream of syllables and her eyes crackled with energy, which immediately burst forth in twin bolts. Grund swung his axe up and the energy flared, leaving char-marks on the flat of the blade. For a moment, as it steamed, she could see the tell-tale curl of runes.
Grund lowered the axe and grinned. He raced towards her. She stepped aside, avoiding the seemingly heedless charge, but not his hand as it snapped out and grabbed her hair. Grund set his feet and yanked her down and around, sending her crashing to the floor.
With one foot planted on her back, he raised his axe. Neferata scrabbled for her sword, which had fallen just out of her reach. Neferata’s fingers dug grooves in the stone as she tried to shake him loose but it was as if the mountain itself was holding her in place. Grund wanted her head and it looked as if he intended to have it.
As the axe fell, she squirmed beneath him and rolled onto her back. Her palms slapped tight on the axe. There was silver in it and her hands blistered as she strained against whatever magics had gone into crafting the blade. With a stifled snarl, she pulled it out of his grip and Grund, off balance, fell off her. His eyes bugged out and he screamed at her and lunged, fingers hooked like claws.
With a snarl of her own, she let the blade slide through her hands and grabbed the haft, swinging as her palms touched the leather bound tight around the wood. The axe chopped into the mad dwarf’s skull, bisecting his berserk features. He hurtled past her and fell. Neferata rose slowly to her feet. Borri was on his feet, his eyes solemn as he took in the body. ‘It was a good death. Your debt is discharged, brother,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘Yours is not.’
Neferata Page 34
