Neferata

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘You are a hard people,’ Neferata said, looking at his guards. They were in the eye of the battle. Dwarfs fought grimly around them, trying to hold back the inevitable for just a few seconds more.

  Borri spat a wad of blood and sputum at her feet. ‘We endure,’ he said.

  ‘Not for long.’ She looked past Borri. ‘Your people are in a place that I may not be able to enter,’ she said, gesturing to the temple of Valaya across the span of the bridge. ‘But reach them I will. I will butcher them, King of Karaz Bryn, your rinn and beardlings. Unless you surrender.’

  Borri glared at her silently. She stepped forwards, ignoring the weapons of his guards. She stretched out a hand. ‘Your hold is lost, King. But a hold can be replaced. Can your people? What debt do you owe them, as king? Is dying here the way they expected that debt to be paid?’

  His face hardened, but only for a moment. His shoulders slumped. ‘We must speak on this.’ He looked at her.

  She inclined her head. ‘Pull back what forces remain to you, King Borri. Neferata of Lahmia will see that you have the time you require,’ she said haughtily. His guard surrounded him protectively as wailing war-horns signalled for retreat. The dwarf throng, what was left of it, was in full flight. The dead did not pursue. Instead they paused on the stairs in serried, silent ranks, staring ahead as their enemies retreated. A Strigoi – Dragoj, she thought – made to follow Borri’s retreating retinue and she stepped in front of him.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let them go.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Dragoj snarled, his eyes bright with bloodlust. ‘We have them here, we must–’ He stopped abruptly and looked down at the sword-tip sprouting from his chest. ‘What?’ he gurgled as he reached out with a trembling finger to touch the blade.

  Neferata’s reply was a swing of Grund’s axe. Dragoj’s head bounced across the stones, the startled expression still on his face. As his body slumped, she met Iona’s dark gaze. ‘Hello, little she-wolf,’ she said. The broken hafts of crossbow bolts protruded from Iona’s armour and body alike.

  ‘We have them,’ she said.

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Save those few who are with Khaled. The rest are ours.’ Iona grinned. ‘They never even suspected until our blades were cutting their hamstrings.’

  ‘Kill them. All of them, and strip the fangs from their skulls. Ushoran will not fail to understand that message.’ Neferata paused, and then went on. ‘But first…’ She looked towards the temples. ‘First we must bring this to an end.’

  She met with Naaima and the others on the edge of the last landing. The dead waited in patient ranks about them. ‘Where’s Morath?’ Neferata said. She still clutched Grund’s axe in her hands.

  Naaima waved a hand towards the ranks of the dead. ‘He’s exhausted. I left him with Varna. She knows not to hurt him,’ she added quickly, before Neferata could protest. Neferata looked at her remaining handmaidens. She had entered with eleven, but only six remained. Of those, only two had accompanied Naaima. The others were busy with the Strigoi, and the screams echoed hellishly over the Deeping Stair.

  Neferata ignored the noise. ‘We go. I want to see if our brave Kontoi managed to accomplish the task I set for him,’ she said.

  ‘What of the dead?’ Naaima said.

  ‘What of them?’ Neferata said, starting down the stairs. ‘Let them stay as they are, to remind the dwarfs that there is no escape. Borri can’t have more than a hundred warriors left, and most of those will be wounded. No. We’ve won. Let us be graceful in victory,’ she continued. Naaima and the others hurried after her.

  It wasn’t until they drew closer to the temples that they heard the screams. They were not the wails of frightened women and children. Instead, they were the full-throated howls of men driven past the breaking point. Weapons rattled and the howls of corpse-wolves echoed through the streets of the temple district.

  Neferata cursed. She broke into a run, her sword in her hand. The four vampires sped through the streets towards the sounds, and Neferata’s curses degenerated into shrieks of rage as she saw that Khaled had indeed accomplished his task, and more besides.

  The refugees had not reached safety. Khaled and Zandor had been quicker than the dwarfs, and the latter had paid for it. Neferata stalked into the plaza in front of the temple of Valaya. It was carpeted with the bodies of slain. Little bodies, some of them, impossibly little; and something in Neferata curdled and she was once more in Lahmia, watching as the soldiers of Rasetra and Khemri and Lybaras snatched Lahmian children from their wailing mothers and swung them by their ankles against the walls of houses.

  Borri and his men had obviously arrived too late to rescue any of their loved ones. Instead they had been met by the silent menace of the tortured spirit-hosts drawn from the bodies of the dead. The ghosts of women and children and dead warriors swept across the great plaza, surrounding an imposing structure which Neferata thought must be the temple to either Grimnir or Grungni.

  ‘They ran in there, the little fools,’ Khaled said. ‘Then, who can blame them, eh?’

  Neferata spun. Khaled sat on a dwarf cart, his mouth and chest wet with blood. His gloves were soaked in it and he smiled at her. He cut his eyes to the spirit-host and licked his lips. ‘You weren’t the only one who learned from Morath. I was quite the connoisseur of such things, before… Well.’ He gestured to himself. Neferata caught sight of Anmar behind him, and Zandor. Redzik was there was as well, and four other Strigoi. Dead wolves prowled among the corpses and slobbering ghouls squabbled over the choice bits.

  ‘What have you done?’ Neferata hissed.

  Khaled hopped to his feet. ‘What I was commanded to do, by my master,’ he snarled. He pointed at her. ‘What you were commanded to do!’

  ‘No one commands me,’ she said. ‘Not Nagash, not Ushoran and certainly not you, princeling!’

  ‘I told you,’ Zandor spat. ‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted. Kill her, Arabyan!’

  Khaled hesitated, his expression shifting.

  ‘Ushoran is not here, Khaled,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Can you feel his influence? I cannot. He has no power here. He cannot command us.’

  Khaled looked at her. Anmar hurried to his side. ‘Brother, if she’s right–’

  ‘Quiet,’ Khaled snapped. ‘I need to think, I–’

  ‘No! No more thinking, no more talk!’ Zandor snarled. He leapt for Neferata as the other Strigoi converged on Naaima and the others. As Zandor crashed against her, the doors to the great temple where Borri and his remaining men had retreated boomed open and off their hinges, shattering the stillness of the mountain.

  A maggot-infested wolf bounded towards the opening and was crushed by an expertly wielded hammer. A shorn-scalped dwarf stepped into view, his hair and beard shaved. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. He held his hammer in one hand as he tore feverishly at the clasps of his armour.

  Another dwarf, similarly shaved and bare-chested, followed. Then another and another, dozens, the last survivors of Karaz Bryn, their beards shaved and oaths to Grimnir on their tongues as they discarded their armour with ritualistic contempt. Some had daubed strange markings on their flesh in soot and blood and the eerie dirge that swept from them chilled even Neferata’s heart.

  She knew then that there would be no surrender. No mercy.

  ‘What–?’ Zandor began, staring at them in shock. His hands hung limply around Neferata’s neck. ‘Are they mad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Neferata said, and rammed her fist through his chest. Zandor screamed in shock and pain as her fingers sought his heart. She seized it and jerked it free of his chest. The Strigoi staggered back. Neferata crushed his heart before his disbelieving eyes. ‘I told you to remember my hand on your heart, Zandor,’ she hissed.

  Zandor lunged with an inarticulate cry and Neferata brought Grund’s axe up and buried it in the Strigoi’s skull as he knocked he
r to the ground. Before she could get up Khaled’s sword sank through the meat of her thigh, pinning her leg to the floor. She screamed. Her scream was echoed by the dwarfs as they charged forwards to meet the ghosts and ghouls and dead warriors that sprang into action at Khaled’s barked order. The dead and the suicidal crashed together like opposing ocean waves, and hymns to Grimnir buffeted her ears as she grabbed for the sword.

  ‘No,’ Khaled said, stepping back, his expression torn between satisfaction and disgust. ‘No. You won’t wriggle free of this trap.’

  Neferata twisted, but the sword was in an awkward place. She couldn’t reach it. Khaled, oblivious to the fighting going on around them, squatted before her, grabbing her chin as she had so often grabbed his. ‘Was that what I was? A trap?’ he sneered. ‘Are all men traps, my lady? Is that why you could not accept what I offered you?’

  ‘You’re no trap, Khaled. You’re simply a fool,’ Neferata hissed, grabbing his wrist. ‘You offered nothing. You wanted everything and I give nothing.’ Khaled jerked back, trying to free his hand from her grip. Flailing for a weapon, he snatched up the axe, jerking it out of Zandor’s skull. The silver wept smoke as it exited the vampire and it trailed it down as Khaled lashed out at her. She twisted.

  The axe struck her, gashing the flesh of her throat. Suddenly she was choking on her own blood and she released Khaled and squirmed around, leg still pinned to the floor, clutching at her throat. Khaled gave a scream of fury and prepared to deliver another blow.

  ‘No!’

  Khaled whirled as the sword gouged across his side. He swept the axe down into the chest of his attacker. Anmar coughed and fell back. ‘No,’ Khaled said. ‘Oh no, no, no…’ He stooped and tried to pull his sister to her feet, but the axe was buried to the haft in her heart. Smoke and steam rose from the wound and from her mouth and nose and eyes as she twitched and thrashed. In her final moments, she reached for her mistress as Neferata rose unsteadily to her feet, Khaled’s sword in one bloody hand. Neferata’s pain-filled writhing had dislodged the blade finally, and now she held it tightly.

  ‘Goodbye, little leopard,’ Neferata said, and drove the sword down through Khaled’s body, into his sister’s and on into the rock below. Khaled made no sound as his sister expired and the rot that claimed all vampires upon death set in, reducing her form to what it would have been had she lived a mortal life. Khaled shuddered, pinned in place by the sword, unable to look away.

  Neferata kicked the axe out of his reach and turned. Borri’s men were fewer in number than they had first seemed, and though they fought as berserkers, the dead were numberless. Ghostly hands plucked at bare flesh, drawing the last dregs of life from the warriors.

  ‘Neferata of Lahmia, I declare you oath-breaker and murderer,’ a harsh voice rasped. Neferata turned. Her handmaidens still battled the Strigoi. She was alone.

  ‘Borri,’ she said, reaching for the sword still sheathed on her hip. The king had doffed his armour, as had his remaining warriors, and his barrel chest was streaked with blood. He still carried his son’s axe. ‘We can still end this without further bloodshed.’

  ‘Your name has been entered in the book,’ he said. Then he charged. Neferata barely blocked the blow and spun, dancing around the dwarf as he chopped at her in grim silence. Soon Borri was puffing and stumbling. The exertions of the day had taken their toll. ‘You have murdered us,’ he gasped, lashing out at her. ‘You have torn out the heart of our hold and condemned us to wander.’

  Neferata avoided a wild blow. ‘You have condemned my son to wander!’ Borri roared, flinging the axe at her as she stepped back. She swatted the axe aside.

  Borri tensed. His hands clutched emptily, and he glanced at the axe where it had fallen. Neferata shook her head. ‘You won’t reach it.’

  Borri said nothing. Neferata sighed. ‘Honour is a burden a ruler can ill afford. It is a weight on the soul and the mind.’

  ‘Kill me and be done, witch.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill you, Borri. If I did, I would have let Zandor and his bone-eating cronies do the job for me,’ she snapped, gesturing to the mangled corpse of the Strigoi. ‘I want you alive. I want your people alive. Together, we can–’

  ‘No,’ Borri said.

  Neferata stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘No.’ He looked at her pityingly. ‘Your name has been entered into the Book of Grudges, Neferata of Lahmia. There can be no end other than the settling of the debt.’

  ‘I’m offering you mercy, King Borri. I am offering you the lives of those of your people who survive. And all I ask is that you–’ she said, bewildered.

  ‘The living do not serve the dead,’ Borri said.

  ‘You dwarfs do nothing but serve your dead,’ Neferata spat. ‘This whole place is nothing but a tomb! It’s a monument to a failed race!’

  ‘Then let it be our tomb,’ Borri said simply.

  Neferata closed her mouth. She looked away. ‘Is that your answer?’

  ‘There can be no other,’ Borri said. Then, with a grunt, he leapt for the axe. Neferata whirled, reaching for him. Borri ripped the axe up and rolled across the floor, springing to his feet as Neferata swooped over him. He set his feet and swung his son’s axe. Neferata screamed as the axe chopped into her shoulder and the silver threads that ran through it burned her. Her fist punched through Borri’s torso, erupting from his back in a splatter of blood. Borri grunted and his trembling arm sawed at her shoulder, trying to reach her heart even in his final moments. Neferata gasped and grabbed his face with her free hand and ripped the dwarf away from her, flinging him backwards. He landed in a bloody heap some distance away and she wrenched the axe from her body, screaming again as smoke escaped from the wound. Still holding the axe she stumbled towards him, intending to bury the weapon in his skull.

  But there was no need. Borri was dead. Neferata sank to her haunches and placed the axe between his hands. She stood, one hand holding the wound on her shoulder closed.

  She turned towards the battle, her face settling into a still mask as she started forwards. The war was over. All that was left was the massacre.

  It had all led to this moment, every struggle and every scheme. She had ever sought a place from which to rule, to command. But always they had been taken from her. Always, outside events had interfered. Lahmia, Bel Aliad, Sartosa, Mourkain, memories and false-starts all, she knew that now. The dead could not rule the living.

  But she would rule nonetheless. She would rule this place. She would make it a fortress, a temple to ambition and a refuge from a world whose tides and tempests she would set right. A dwarf roared and swung a hammer at her. She caught the weapon and drove its haft into the berserker’s belly, rupturing organs and breaking bones. She kicked the dwarf aside and met their hymns with the war-song of lost Lahmia.

  She would see to it that that song was sung again, in the years to come. The ghost of Lahmia would find rest here, within these sheltering halls. A dwarf screamed wildly and drove a broken spear into her hip. Neferata broke his neck and threw the body into the air. More dwarfs charged forwards, seeking death and absolution.

  Neferata was happy enough to give them the former.

  Blood filled her vision, sweeping away all doubt and ambition. She snarled and spat and screeched, less a woman than some great veldt cat driven past hunger into madness. The dead fell around her, their remorseless march stalled and stopped by the berserkers who tangled their dying bodies in spears and among legs, dragging blazing-eyed ghouls down beneath the press with a final spasm of insane strength.

  Soon Neferata was alone, a pale wraith stalking dunes of dead flesh, her fangs popping from her mouth, her tongue long and lashing as she drank the thick, heady brew from her blade. One dwarf left, screaming and bulge-eyed, so far gone in shame and hate that he did not realise that he was alone.

  She parried his axe and brought her sword up through his barrel che
st, lifting him off his feet. As the dwarf’s blood gushed down her arm to splash across the stone, Neferata leaned close to one club-ear and whispered, ‘I am queen.’ The words sounded hollow in the sudden silence.

  The dwarf’s only reply was a death-rattle.

  Neferata stood for a time, looking down at the body. The last defender was dead. The Silver Pinnacle had fallen.

  Long live New Lahmia.

  EPILOGUE

  The Silver Pinnacle

  (–15 Imperial Reckoning)

  Neferata sat back and took a sip from her goblet. ‘And that was that. I’m sure you know the rest.’ Arkhan the Black gazed at her silently. He had remained standing throughout her tale, his undead body knowing neither fatigue nor discomfort. Now, however, his head dipped and his eyes dimmed.

  ‘That is it?’ he said.

  ‘You wound me,’ Neferata said, leaning back. ‘And you do me a disservice.’

  Arkhan shifted, his bones creaking. ‘You make it sound so simple.’

  ‘It was anything but, I assure you,’ Neferata said. She touched her temple. ‘I can still hear it, though its whispers have grown ever fainter in these intervening years.’

  ‘Where is it now?’ Arkhan said. ‘Where is the crown?’

  ‘Your master knows better than I,’ Neferata said. She tilted her head. ‘It sits hidden to the west and Nagash is drawn to it. And you are drawn with him.’

  Arkhan stiffened. His eyes flashed. ‘As you will be as well. Nothing you have told me is of any use, Neferata.’

  ‘If you think that, then you are indeed diminished,’ Neferata said, her eyes narrowing. ‘You truly do not see it, do you?’