Neferata
Page 36
‘I see a woman hiding in a tomb, cowering from fate,’ Arkhan said harshly.
‘Careful,’ Neferata said softly. ‘And you should know by now that fate is a mocker. There is no fate, save that which we make for ourselves, else it would have been I who wore Nagash’s crown.’
‘Are you so certain? How do you know Ushoran was not its intended recipient?’
‘I don’t. But it sought the strongest. Not just in body, but in mind. It wanted a sorcerer and a warrior, not either-or,’ Neferata said. ‘It wanted a strong body to ride into eternity.’ She smiled widely, her fangs surfacing from behind her lips. ‘So I gave it one.’
Arkhan stood silently for a moment, the glow in his eyes dim. Then, suddenly, they blazed bright. The skull tilted back and the jaws gaped and Arkhan the Black laughed, truly laughed, for the first time in centuries. There was a black joy in that sound, and relief as well.
The great hall of the Silver Pinnacle echoed with the sound of his joy, and the bats that clung to the ceiling stirred, their tiny dreams becoming unpleasant as Arkhan’s voice penetrated their thoughts. As the echoes of his laughter faded, Arkhan looked down at her. ‘Do you think he realised, at the end, what you had done?’ he said.
‘If he had, he might have tried harder to destroy me,’ Neferata said. ‘Instead, he was content to squander that power on barbarians and orcs and worse monsters.’ She gestured extravagantly. ‘Then, maybe he did, and maybe this was my reward for it.’ She chuckled. ‘I suppose it’s too late to ask him now.’
‘I suppose you were only too happy to see the crown vanish into the west, there at the end,’ Arkhan said.
Neferata’s humour faded. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘poor Morath. He played his part well, in the end, in the last days of Mourkain.’ She looked at Arkhan. ‘He was right, you know. Ushoran consumed the Strigoi, as we consumed the Lahmians. You were – are – right. The dead cannot rule the living. They can only destroy them. Or perhaps guide them.’
‘Is that what you would do? Guide them where?’
Neferata laughed. ‘Why… I will guide them wherever I wish, Arkhan.’ She pointed at him. ‘But you did not come here to hear my plans for the future, did you?’
‘I came for vampires,’ Arkhan said.
‘Ah yes, because Nagash demands it. He wants new servants; more, he wants servants who can propagate themselves. With our kind, one becomes two, two becomes four, four to eight and so on,’ Neferata said, smiling. ‘A plague of undeath, a plague that walks and plans and fights, that is what the old king of bones wants, isn’t it?’
Arkhan was silent. He knew her well enough to know that she was leading him somewhere. Neferata rose to her feet and drifted close to him, pressing her palms to his cuirass. She leaned close, her lips brushing the chill edge of his skull. ‘To beat Nagash, one must give him what he wants. No more, no less,’ she whispered.
Arkhan grabbed her wrists with alien swiftness. ‘Are you offering yourself, Neferata?’
She frowned coquettishly. ‘Perish the thought. What use would Nagash have for a mere woman? No, but I can offer you the services of another…’
There was a scrape of metal on stone. Something heavy was being dragged across the floor of the hall. Arkhan turned with one hand on the hilt of his sword. Neferata leaned her chin on his shoulder and pointed, and said, ‘And there he is now.’
Arkhan stepped down from the dais, sweeping aside the curtains. Four brawny ghouls dragged forwards an oblong box, crafted from iron and ringed by silver bands. From inside came a muffled howl. Neferata clucked her tongue. ‘Even after all this time, he still weeps for her. I do as well, but he was always quite extravagant about such things. Quite the beast for grand gestures, my Kontoi…’
The ghouls set the box down before them and backed away hurriedly, as if they feared what was inside. ‘Two hundred years or so. I wonder what he will look like, my handsome warrior-prince,’ Neferata murmured, sweeping down from the dais and running her fingers along the edge of the box. It trembled as if something was thrashing wildly within. There was another muffled howl and she laughed.
She looked at Arkhan. ‘He is yours, if you want him. Make of him a gift from the Queen of Mysteries to the King of Death. Or perhaps he is a replacement – a lieutenant for a lieutenant.’
‘What?’ Arkhan said.
Neferata laughed. ‘You still do not listen! Even after all these years, you never listen.’ She flicked her fingers. ‘Take him, Arkhan the Black, Arkhan of Khemri. Though all debts were settled between us long ago and I owe you nothing, I give you this last gift. Give it to Nagash, and be free, my gambler.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, looking at the box.
Neferata did not reply. She simply laughed and stepped past him. Her laughter remained long after she had left, sweeping into the darkness, her courtiers following her. Arkhan was left only with the ghouls and the moaning thing in its silver-banded box. When silence fell, save for the desolate cries of Khaled al Muntasir in his prison, Arkhan shook himself.
‘Thank you,’ he said, the words escaping from his mouth like a sigh. Then, he turned to go.
His master was waiting, and Arkhan had a prize to deliver.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author of the novels Knight of the Blazing Sun, Neferata and the forthcoming Gotrek and Felix: Road of Skulls, Josh Reynolds used to be a roadie for the Hong Kong Cavaliers, but now writes full time. His work has appeared in various anthologies, including Age of Legend and several issues of Hammer and Bolter.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Jon Sullivan
© Games Workshop Limited 2012. All rights reserved.
Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2012, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-85787-804-5
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise except as expressly permitted under license from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
See the Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com
Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
www.games-workshop.com
eBook license
This license is made between:
Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and
(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)
(jointly, “the parties”)
These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:
* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:
o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;
o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic dev
ice and/or through any appropriate storage media; and
* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.
* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:
o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;
o 3.4 You attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.
* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.
* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.
* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.
* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.
* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.
* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.
* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.