The Serpent Queen

by Josh Reynolds

  ‘I know,’ Gotrek groused. ‘Damned elves ruin everything.’ He swiped his hand through the curling mist, and it reformed swiftly.

  ‘Cursed mist,’ he barked again. The mist put Felix in mind of the mists they’d encountered in Albion, and he frowned, waving a hand in front of his face.

  ‘I hope Bolinas is sober enough to guide us through it,’ Felix said. He turned from the rail. The mist was creeping across the deck, and curling about the masts. The crew had become subdued, and quiet. Some, those closest to the rails, cast nervous glances over the side. What is it they know that we don’t, Felix wondered.

  ‘Bolinas sails better when he’s drunk,’ Gotrek said. He pushed away from the rail and stumped back towards where he’d left his axe.

  Felix snatched up his sword and belted the sheath about his waist. He saw one of Bolinas’s mates handing out cutlasses and boarding pikes to the crew. There was definitely something going on. Felix looked about and spotted Bolinas at the wheel, a new bottle in his hand, and his eyes fixed on the mounting fog ahead of them. Felix climbed to join him on the upper deck. ‘I can’t help but notice that your crew is preparing for trouble, captain,’ he said quietly.

  Bolinas squinted at him. ‘Aye, as I said, dangerous waters,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Pirates,’ Felix guessed.

  ‘Pirates, aye, there’re pirates, and worse than pirates,’ Bolinas said. He took a swig from his bottle. ‘Pirates would be a blessing from Ulric, frankly. The dead don’t rest easily in these waters, Jaeger.’ He pressed his bottle to his cheek and continued, ‘We’re not far from the Bitter Sea, here, and the fleets of bone and brass that ride those dark waves.’

  It only took Felix a moment to grasp the import of Bolinas’s words. ‘The Land of the Dead,’ he said softly. Suddenly cold, he pulled his cloak tighter about himself. He’d heard the stories of the Land of the Dead as a boy, and more recently in Tilea.

  A land where nothing lived, but things still moved. Of great tomb-cities, guarded by skeletal legions, and ruled by undying kings, still swaddled in their grave-wrappings. A once-mighty empire, made over into a thing of dust and rattling bones by some long ago cataclysm. ‘I thought we were far from Zandri,’ he said, naming the great coastal necropolis that Sartosian sailors so feared. ‘Isn’t that where the war-fleets of the dead are said to issue from?’

  ‘Aye, but we’re close to the Gulf of Fear, and it’s from there that the fleets of the tomb-cities that border the Southlands sail. Or so I hear, for I’ve never seen one,’ Bolinas said, taking another swig. ‘And I’m in no hurry to do so.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Felix said. He dropped his hand to Karaghul’s pommel. He’d fought the risen dead more than once, and lost friends and more than friends to them. He closed his eyes as a pale, aristocratic face swam to the surface of his mind, and he shoved the memory of his lost Kislevite lover aside. Ulrika was gone into the darkness, and though their path had been thorny, it had been no fault of hers. Where she was now, he couldn’t say, nor did he like to think of it, or of the red-eyed thing she’d become.

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ Gotrek growled. Startled, Felix turned. The Slayer had crept up on them unawares, the mist muffling his approach. ‘I‘ve fought them, too.’ The Slayer reached up and snatched the bottle from Bolinas, who made a sound of mild protest. Gotrek upended the bottle and drained it. He pitched it over the side with a gentle toss and said, ‘They die like any other uzkular. Smash the skull or the spine and they’re no threat.’ He hefted his axe meaningfully. In the light of the lanterns hung from the mast, the ancient runes etched into the blade glimmered strangely. ‘The dry dead are lost in dim ages, manling. They are buried in the stuff of the past, and they do not know they are dead.’

  ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better about encountering them,’ Felix said.

  While it was somewhat amusing to hear a dwarf accuse someone else of being lost in the past, he was careful not to let it show on his face. There was no telling how Gotrek would take it.

  ‘Skull and spine, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘Just aim for the skull and spine.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Felix said sourly. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

  They stood in silence after that, for what felt like hours. Bolinas guided the Orfeo through the mist-laden waters seemingly as much by instinct as by the directions shouted down to him by the crew perched on the top of the masts. Watch-lanterns had been lit and hung from every available protrusion, but the swelling mist swallowed the light. Braziers and torches provided no aid, and soon, it was hard to discern even as far as the prow of the ship.

  Bored, Gotrek had broken open a keg of ale and sat on the poop deck, guzzling alcohol. Felix, for his part, felt too keyed up to drink or lounge. He eyed the mists and idly played with his sword hilt, thinking of sun-baked deserts and antediluvian tombs. Part of him, the sensible part, cringed from the thought, even as it cringed from the idea of trudging through the muck of the Southlands for months on end. But another part of him, the same part that had compelled him to swear a blood-oath to a mad, one-eyed dwarf, was intrigued. His father had funded one of the early attempts by the Altdorf explorers’ guild to map Nehekhara, and Felix could still recall the ancient, crumbling papyrus that his father had mounted on his office wall, preserved in its thick wooden frame.

  As a boy, he’d stared at that papyrus with its strange pictographic writing for hours on end. It seemed to promise entrance to a world beyond the dull confines of Jaeger & Sons, a world of danger and excitement. He sighed. He’d got both of those, in spades, these past few years. Felix fancied that he’d had enough adventures to last him for several lifetimes. He’d written barely a third of them down, since time to write was ever in short supply. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever find that time, or whether he’d perish before then.

  From out of the mist came a sound. It wavered through the air and faded, before Felix could focus on it. He tensed, all thoughts of writing washed from his mind by a sudden spurt of adrenaline. ‘Gotrek, did you hear that?’ he said, turning to look for the Slayer. Gotrek was on his feet, axe in hand and his good eye narrowed.

  ‘Quiet, manling,’ he growled. The dwarf stalked towards the rail, his head cocked.

  ‘What do you hear, Gurnisson?’ Bolinas said.

  ‘Hsst,’ Gotrek hissed, flinging up a hand. Bolinas fell silent. Felix heard it a moment later. It was a dull, rhythmic thud – boom-boom-boom – that caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. It seemed to pierce the mist from all directions, and for a moment, Felix fancied that it was the crash of waves, or even cannon-fire but it was too regular to be either of those. He squinted, trying to see through the mist, but whatever was causing the sound was undoubtedly too far away.

  ‘Gotrek,’ he said, ‘what is that?’

  Gotrek didn’t reply. The Slayer glared out at the mist, his mouth set in a grim frown, and his axe held across his chest. The thudding grew louder. The crew, who’d fallen silent as the mist enveloped them, began to mutter amongst themselves, until a sharp bark of command from Bolinas’s mate, a heavy-set Bretonnian with a face like the underside of a river-barge and muscles almost as swollen as Gotrek’s, set them scurrying back to their appointed tasks. The thudding continued unabated, and just beneath it, like an afterthought, Felix thought he caught the sound of a splash.

  All at once, those gulls that had not taken flight earlier during Gotrek’s outburst did so, in a cacophony of wailing cries and frantically beating wings. The birds heaved themselves upwards with an amount of avian desperation that Felix had only previously observed in pigeons trying to escape an alley cat. He watched them spiral upwards until he lost sight of them in the ever-thickening mist. As the gulls vanished, so too did their shrieks cease, as surely as if the birds had never been. And the thudding continued, unceasing and growing ever louder.

  In contrast to the noise, the wind grew weaker a
nd weaker until the sails drooped like empty wineskins and the Orfeo slowed to a crawl. The mist thickened about the sluggish vessel, and soon it was rolling over the rails and curling around the mast, bringing with it a muggy heat. Felix used the hem of his cloak to daub sweat from his face. ‘What’s happened to the wind?’ he said. His voice sounded tinny and muffled to his ears.

  ‘It fled, like the gulls,’ Bolinas said softly. The slur had vanished from his voice, and he had straightened from his usual reeling slouch. Fear had sobered him up. ‘We’ve entered a sour patch of water and no mistake.’

  Felix was about to ask him what he meant, but then thought better of it. Hand wrapped around his sword’s hilt, he made to join Gotrek at the rail when the ship’s compass caught his eye. The compass was a large instrument, composed of equal parts brass and glass, and set into an ornately carved wooden housing that was shaped like an Imperial griffon, rampant. The griffon crouched beneath the weight of the compass, its talons holding the instrument steady, within line of sight of the helmsman. Felix glanced at the compass as he strode to the rail, looked away, and then, as what he‘d seen registered, stopped and looked at it again. His eyes widened slightly and he cursed as he watched the needle spin around and around in an aimless circle.

  ‘The compass, Gotrek, look at the compass,’ Felix hissed, motioning to catch the Slayer’s attention. Gotrek ignored him.

  ‘Leave it, manling. Only elves and humans trust such devices. A dwarf always knows what direction he’s facing,’ the Slayer rumbled. His eye narrowed as he peered into the mist. Felix knew that a dwarf could see further and clearer than a man, but he doubted that even Gotrek could see through the obscuring mist. The thudding was growing still louder, as if whatever was causing it were growing steadily closer. It seemed to burrow through the mist towards them, and the throbbing pitch set Felix’s back teeth to itching.

  ‘And what direction is that, just now, out of curiosity?’ Bolinas interjected.

  ‘North,’ Gotrek said, and then amended, ‘North-ish.’ He spat and looked at Bolinas. ‘We’re off course, and we have been since we entered this damnable mist.’

  ‘Can’t be helped,’ Bolinas grunted. ‘Can‘t see, can’t navigate. All we can do is hope that we don’t strike a reef or run aground.’ He glared at the Slayer morosely. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have let you on board, Gurnisson. You’re a damned jinx and no mistake.’

  ‘I’ll not be denied a chance at my doom by some stinking mist,’ Gotrek snapped pugnaciously. He hefted his axe, and for a moment, Felix thought he was going to lash out at the mist in a show of futile rage. Instead, the Slayer‘s expression grew calculating.

  ‘What is it?’ Felix said.

  ‘I think I’ve figured out what that blasted noise is,’ Gotrek said. There was a cheerful note in his voice that Felix had come to know and fear. If Gotrek was happy, it meant that others, Felix included, were soon to become very, very unhappy. The Slayer glanced back at Bolinas and said, ‘I’d advise you to break out the battle-rum and get your crew ready for a fight, Bolinas, because we’re not alone out here.’

  Bolinas stared at the Slayer for a moment, and then realisation dawned in his eyes. ‘Ulric’s Teeth,’ he snarled. ‘To arms, lads!’

  ‘What? What is it?’ Felix said, raising his voice to be heard. The rhythmic thudding was now loud enough to cause his eardrums to twinge in pain, and it rolled across the deck like thunder. And he could hear something else as well. It sounded like oars.

  ‘Weren’t you listening earlier, manling? The living aren’t the only ones with an interest in these waters – look!’ Gotrek pointed. Felix did, and a moment later felt his heart sink. The galleys that swooped out of the mist were long, lean things that rode low in the water, but even so were larger and heavier than the Orfeo. Indeed, Bolinas’s ship looked like a child’s toy compared to the massive hulks that were even now slicing through the water towards them.

  There were a dozen of them, and they moved far more quickly than any ocean-going vessel Felix had ever seen. Each had three great banks of oars on either side, which tore foamy furrows in the water as they thrust the galleys inexorably forwards. Each galley had a single square sail, emblazoned with what he thought might be a stylised asp or viper, mounted on a thick mast set just a little forward of the centre of the vessel, and a smaller, triangular sail mounted on a smaller forward mast.

  On the high aft deck of each, emaciated figures pounded wide-bellied drums, and weird, skeletal forms clustered at the rails. Felix felt his skin crawl as he took in the yellowing, bare bones of those warriors. He’d seen the undead before, but they never failed to horrify him. Bones should rest in graves or caskets, not be animated and armed. The closest galley had drawn so near that Felix could make out the strange hieroglyphs that had been painstakingly engraved on the bronze-plated, knife-edged bow that was aimed steadfastly at the midpoint of the Orfeo. Bolinas was screaming orders even as he spun the wheel, trying vainly to turn the ship and avoid the unavoidable.

  Felix stared at the approaching vessel, momentarily frozen by his own helplessness in the face of onrushing destruction. Gotrek cursed and gesticulated, frustrated by the situation, rather than afraid. Crewmen called out warnings from the other side of the merchantman. Felix whirled about and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the second flotilla of galleys sweeping towards the Orfeo from the opposite side. These had what he took to be a hawk or other bird of prey in place of the serpent on their sails, but were otherwise identical to his untrained eye. They were massive and bearing down on him, and that was enough.

  ‘Looks like we’re caught between a troll and a hard place, manling,’ Gotrek whooped. He shook his axe in a ‘come-hither’ manner at the nearest galley. ‘Come on, you dusty buzzard’s leavings! Come to Gotrek!’

  For a moment, Felix thought that Bolinas had, impossibly, manoeuvred his ship out of the path of the galley, and his heart leapt in exultation. Then came the crunch of a bronze ram biting into the aft deck, and the Orfeo was punched aside in an explosion of wood and rigging. Men screamed as they were hurled into the air. The force of the impact tore the ship in two, breaking it at the mast.

  Felix was flung high into the air. As if in slow motion, as he turned end over end, he saw Bolinas, still clinging to the wheel, go flying forwards in a cloud of splinters. The burly mate vanished in a cloud of red as the mast toppled sideways and a heavy pulley, broken loose from the rigging, struck his skull and pitched him head over heels into the waiting water. And Gotrek, axe in hand and death-song on his lips, seemed to climb the cloud of debris towards the hull of the galley that had bisected the Orfeo.

  Felix’s last glimpse of the Slayer was of the moment when Gotrek’s axe thudded home into the side of the galley. The Slayer had not noticed Felix’s absence. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care. Felix plummeted down into the water.

  He struck the water hard, and the air was slapped from his lungs by the force of the impact. The water greedily clutched at him, dragging him down into its depths. His cloak billowed and then shrank around him as he sank, smothering him in its sodden folds even as his lungs threatened to burst from lack of air. The weight of his chainshirt squeezed his aching chest, and he thrashed wildly, trying to free himself of the invisible clutches of the sea. Bodies plunged past him, wheeling about into the darkness in a broken gavotte.

  Chunks of splintered wood, broken rigging, rope and barrels pierced the gloom of the water, arcing down, riding the current of the ship’s destruction into the depths. Felix tore the grasping edge of his cloak from his face even as a length of broken spar corkscrewed towards him. It caught him a glancing blow and he was sent spinning through the depths, darkness tugging at his mind even as pain ricocheted through his battered body.

  His abused body had reached its limit. Impact after impact had drained the strength from his muscles, and his thrashing grew weaker and weaker as the water enfolded him in its embrace. S
alt water burned in his nose and mouth and ears, and he could hear the slowing hammer-beat of his own heart. He could see nothing but motley colours, which swirled and billowed across his mind’s eye. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and rest, just for a moment, until his strength returned.

  His last thought before blackness claimed him was to wonder who Gotrek would find to write about his doom now.

  Chapter 2

  The jungles of the Southlands were never silent for the woman called Nitocris.

  The trees vibrated with the music of death, from the highest branches to the lowest roots. The air was perfumed with the heady musk of slaughter, and the wind carried the roars of hungry beasts to serenade her as she drowsed.

  She lay unmoving on a stone bier, her dusky flesh soaking up the moonlight that streamed down through the gaping hole in the roof of the ziggurat that she had claimed a hundred years before, in a single night of blood and fire.

  Her bier occupied the topmost chamber of the ziggurat. The chamber reeked of blood and fear, even now, a century or more since she had claimed it as her citadel. Men and women had gone screaming to their deaths on the bier on which she slumbered, their ribcages burst and their hearts plucked, still pulsing, from their gaping chests. The ghosts of a thousand sacrifices still clung to the vine-strangled stones of the chamber, and they crept through the shadows, hollow-eyed and mutely screaming still as they stalked the quivering phantoms of their slayers in a never-ending chase that provided Nitocris with unceasing amusement.

  Veins the hue of ash streaked her flesh. Her hair was the colour of pitch, and so dark that it was almost blue in the moonlight. Her eyes flickered as she dreamt of soft silks and the salt-tinged air of the City of the Dawn. It was a false dream, for she had never been to Lahmia. She had never seen its ivory pillars, engraved with the names of its kings and queens, or the soft-hued marble of its palaces, which mimicked the clouds at dawn. But she wished to. And she would. Such was the command of the Queen of Mysteries.