Gotrek hunched in the back of the chariot, his good eye blazing fiercely. ‘Slow down, blast you,’ he snarled. ‘Let me off here! My axe grows thirsty.’
‘No, don’t slow down,’ Felix said. If they did, the horses might fall apart, and then where would they be?
‘Don’t be so cowardly, manling. You have a full night before you die,’ Gotrek blustered, glaring at Felix. ‘The enemy is right there, and I’m getting itchy to crack some skulls.’
Zabbai leaned forward and cracked the reins again. The horses were swaying and skidding. ‘You will have all of the battle you can stomach soon enough, Doom-Seeker,’ she said. ‘The only way to reach the gates of Lybaras is through the ranks of the enemy.’
‘Of course it is,’ Felix said, holding tight to the side of the chariot. They were moving so fast that he’d nearly been slung from it more than once as it rattled over the rocky terrain. He looked at his wrist. The eyes of the asp bracelet seemed to glare up at him. He looked up at the bat-choked sky, wondering how much time he had left. Only hours, at most, he suspected, and likely not even that. When did the day begin, for Nehekharans? Sun-up, or dawn’s first light, or even earlier?
The chariot struck the rearmost lines of the undead horde like a thunderbolt. The skeletal horses trampled and smashed the zombies heedlessly, and they shed pieces of themselves in the process. Felix whispered a prayer to any god who might be listening that they’d hold together a bit longer. Corpses were sent flying. Dead men spun over their heads, to crash down in the dust of their passage. Gotrek bellowed cheerfully and shook his axe. Felix gritted his teeth and hunched forward, trying to avoid the bits of dead flesh and broken bone that pelted them.
The chariot carved a swathe through the close-packed ranks of the dead, careening towards the front lines of the host. A horse lost most of its leg and fell, shattering into pieces. The chariot slewed wildly as the remaining horses took up the slack. ‘There,’ Zabbai said, pointing. The massive gates of the tomb-city rose up before them. They were huge edifices of bronze and iron, and covered in the shapes of thousands of serpents, all of which seemed to be moving and squirming in the dust and clamour of war.
Felix’s heart leapt at the sight. They were almost clear of the horde. A roar caught his attention. A carnosaur, long dead and with its bones shot through with broken roots and dried moss, loped alongside them. A vampire crouched on its back, a javelin in one hand and a shield in the other. She screamed and the carnosaur leaned towards the chariot, its fleshless jaws snapping shut on the head of one of the horses.
The carnosaur jerked its head and tore the horse from its traces. The chariot was upended and wrenched into the air, but only for a moment. The magic that held the remaining horses together finally gave out and they crumbled in mid-flight. Felix hit the ground before the chariot. He rolled aside as it smashed down. He’d avoided being crushed only by a hair’s-breadth. He looked up and saw the carnosaur’s foot dropping towards him, and he rolled back the other way. The taloned foot thudded down. Felix leapt to his feet, sword in hand. He slashed out instinctively, ripping a gouge in the dead beast’s leg. It snapped at him, catching his cloak and tearing a strip from it as he ducked aside.
‘Ho, beast,’ Gotrek shouted, hefting a broken chunk of chariot. As the carnosaur turned towards the Slayer, Gotrek leapt, and pierced the beast’s shrivelled eye, and the rotten brain behind it, with the makeshift spear. Such was the force of his blow that the carnosaur was knocked sideways, and it fell onto its side. The vampire sprang from her perch as her mount fell, and as she dropped to the ground she sent her javelin flying towards Gotrek.
Felix lashed out, chopping the missile in half. Gotrek paused only to give him a nod of either acknowledgement or reproach, before bounding past, his axe held aloft. The vampire hastily interposed her shield as Gotrek’s axe dropped towards her. The shield buckled and split, and the vampire was sent sprawling. She was on her feet a moment later, a sword in her hand. But before she could move to meet Gotrek, Zabbai’s axe looped out and sent her head spinning into the depths of the zombie horde clustered about them. Gotrek cursed as the headless body toppled at his feet. ‘That one was mine,’ he said.
‘There are plenty more to choose from,’ Zabbai said. Felix looked around. Zombies closed in around them. Gotrek raised his axe. He glanced at Felix.
‘Get to the gates, manling. I’ll buy you what time I can.’
‘Gotrek, I–’ Felix began. Zabbai grabbed his shoulder.
‘There is no time, Felix. Go!’
Together, the two of them raced towards the gates, which were closed. He had no breath to waste on asking how they were planning on getting in. On top of the gatehouse and walls, skeleton archers and spearmen waited to repel attackers with silent discipline. As Felix ran, he saw zombies bearing scaling ladders, made from the twitching bones of animals and men, approaching the walls. There were siege towers as well, mounted on the slumped, staggering carcasses of great lizards, and battering rams made from the skeletons of immense serpents, entwined about the trunks of trees. For a moment, Felix feared they’d be caught between the advancing army and the wall, but pushed the thought aside as catapults and archers fired from the walls, and the front rank of the besiegers was scythed away.
Behind them, Gotrek had clambered on top of the now twice-dead carnosaur, and was busy spewing profanities and invitations to the zombies lurching towards him. Without the vampire to direct them, the corpses homed in on the loudest, nearest target. Gotrek waited for them with a wide, gap-toothed grin on his ugly face. The dead began to swarm up the carcass of the great lizard and Gotrek tore the head from the first of them to get close.
But before the rest could reach Gotrek, the sands about the carnosaur’s carcass ruptured as two heavy shapes rose from concealing trenches, amidst the zombie horde. Their sudden appearance sent sand and corpses flying in all directions. Their gigantic forms were covered in bones and mortuary ornamentation, and their heads had been carved to resemble large skulls. They were hewn from emerald and stone, and wore great crested helmets, breastplates, vambraces and ornamental greaves, all lavishly decorated and engraved with intricate scenes and scrawling blocks of Nehekharan script. Each bore a mighty two-handed sword, fully the height of a man, and as thick across as Gotrek himself.
Those swords took a dreadful toll on the ranks of zombies, including those scrambling towards Gotrek. The Slayer gave vent to a howl of frustration as his opponents were scythed away, like chaff on the wind. ‘Behold,’ Zabbai said, ‘the Emerald Sentinels of Lybaras, greatest of the war statuary of Nehekhara, and mightiest of the necrolith colossi!’
Felix could only watch in awe as the two gigantic constructs launched an unstoppable assault into the heart of the enemy army. Dozens of zombies were crushed, chopped or hurled into the air by every sweep of the massive blades. Undead saurians hurled themselves at this new foe, seeking to grapple with them. Gotrek dropped from the carnosaur’s carcass and trotted towards Felix, kicking severed heads and limbs out of his way petulantly. ‘They’re killing all my zombies,’ he snarled, gesturing at the stone warriors.
‘There’ll be more, I’m certain,’ Felix said.
Gotrek spat and gestured to the sword in Felix’s hands. ‘Let’s get that toy back to its owner. The sooner we do that, the sooner I can find the doom she promised me,’ he said, glaring longingly at the path of destruction left behind by the two constructs.
‘And the sooner I can get this blasted thing off my arm,’ Felix said. ‘Of course, there’s still the question of how we get in.’
‘There is no question. If the Emerald Sentinels have emerged, then a sortie is imminent. All we have to do is reach the gates as they open,’ Zabbai said.
As they hurried towards the gates, the ground began to tremble beneath their feet. Ahead of them, the ancient portal began to open and Felix saw that Zabbai had been correct. Massive hinges screamed in protest as
the heavy bronze doors spread apart. Felix stumbled to a halt as he caught sight of the two enormous ushabti that were responsible for the movement of the gates.
As the giant statues pushed the gates open to their fullest, a legion of skeletal horsemen galloped through. Gotrek pulled Felix aside as the riders thundered past in a loose column, to join the necrolith colossi in their battle. ‘Careful, manling, you have a bad habit of almost getting run over by horses,’ Gotrek said.
The column split into two lines, which travelled in opposite directions, racing the length of the approaching horde. The horsemen carried bows rather than spears, and as Felix and Zabbai watched, the horse-archers began to fire as they galloped down the line of zombies, peppering the horde with arrows. The approaching mass of zombies hesitated as the front ranks disintegrated and those behind were forced to clamber over their fellows, or be crushed by the colossi. Felix knew it wouldn’t stop them, but it had slowed them considerably.
Zabbai hurried Felix through the gates. ‘Come, we must find the High Queen,’ she said. Skeletons marched past them out of the gates, shields held aloft, and spears levelled. To Felix, it looked as if the might of Lybaras had been mobilised in its entirety. The avenue beyond the gate was packed with rank upon rank of skeletons, most armed with shields and spears, but some archers as well. He realised that the horse-archers had been merely to ensure that the legions arrayed before him had room to take up position before the walls.
Behind the infantry, row upon row of chariots rolled forward, accompanied by more skeletal horseman, and loping ushabti, as well as the sinister shapes of the necropolis knights. Khalida, it seemed, had no intention of weathering a siege. In the lead chariot, Felix caught sight of Khalida. She stood straight-backed, her staff by her side and a khopesh in her hand. Her tomb-guard swarmed around her. Felix saw no sign of Djubti, and he hoped that Khalida could remove the asp without the liche-priest’s help.
‘You have returned,’ Khalida said when she caught sight of them. She ordered her chariot to a halt, and the others followed suit. ‘As Asaph foretold,’ she continued.
Zabbai pushed Felix forwards. ‘My queen, we have travelled far, and braved many dangers, and we have reclaimed that which was stolen from you,’ she intoned.
Khalida’s glowing gaze settled on Felix. ‘Give me the sword.’
He handed it over quickly, eager to be rid of it. ‘What about this?’ he said, gesturing to the asp bracelet. Khalida did not look at him.
‘What about it?’ She looked at Gotrek. ‘I require your service for one day more, Doom-Seeker. The death I promised you encircles us. I would pit the weight of your wyrd against the ambition of my enemy.’
Gotrek’s jaw thrust out stubbornly. ‘And the manling?’ he asked.
‘Fight and he shall live,’ Khalida said. ‘Or die, as the gods will.’
‘But – but, we brought you the sword!’ Felix protested.
‘As the gods willed, and now they will that you fight,’ Khalida said.
‘I’ll fight without the poison!’ Felix protested. He clawed at the bracelet. ‘Get this thing off me!’ He looked around helplessly, and then slumped when he saw no help forthcoming.
Khalida looked at him. ‘You still have a night yet, man of the wild lands. And come the morning, we shall either be victorious or enfolded in oblivion’s bower. Fight hard, and live. Or run and die. Either way, the will of Asaph shall be done.’
‘The manling has never run,’ Gotrek snapped. ‘And aye, I’ll fight for you. You promised me a doom, and I’ll collect it from you, Serpent Queen.’
‘So I did, Doom-Seeker,’ Khalida said softly. ‘Before this battle is done, you may yet find it, if Asaph so wills.’
‘Asaph means nothing to me,’ Gotrek growled. ‘If she would deny me a doom, she’ll have to take it up with Grimnir.’
‘This is the Doom-Seeker, then?’ Rhupesh said, looking down at Gotrek. ‘He is quite tiny.’
‘Come down here and say that,’ Gotrek snapped, flicking blood out of his beard.
Rhupesh leapt down from the chariot and stalked towards Gotrek. They were of a similar size, though Felix judged that, were Rhupesh alive, Gotrek would have proven the heavier. The tomb-king bumped his ribcage against Gotrek’s barrel chest and said, ‘Tiny I called thee, and tiny thou art.’
Gotrek leaned forward. ‘You speak hard words, for a dead man.’
‘I am no man. I am a king,’ Rhupesh barked. The two were almost nose to nose.
‘And I am a Slayer,’ Gotrek growled.
Felix looked back and forth between them. He leaned towards Zabbai. ‘He’s – ah – he’s quite short, for a king. And broad,’ he said hesitantly.
‘He is the Son of the Ox and Asp,’ Zabbai said. ‘He was found in a basket of rushes, delivered to Lybaras as a gift of the gods.’
‘Right, right, but his general shape is…’ Felix trailed off.
‘The weight of his divine strength has but reduced his stature.’
‘Are you sure?’ Felix asked, wondering how to phrase the question he dearly wanted to ask. Before he could, however, Khalida thumped the floor of her chariot with her staff.
‘Cease, Rhupesh,’ she said. ‘We ride to war already. There is no need to start a second here.’ She looked at Zabbai. ‘Take the Adder Legion and Harkhaty’s regiment,’ she gestured to one of the nearby tomb-guard, who saluted stiffly, ‘to the Gate of Salt and Trade. The enemy has entered the harbour. They seek to enter the city from the seaward side, likely so that they might throw open the gates to Nitocris’s host. Throw them back into the sea, my herald.’ She gestured and her chariot-driver snapped the reins. The chariot rumbled past. Felix was forced to scramble aside. Rhupesh’s chariot followed suit, and the column marched on, out of the gates to meet the enemy.
‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’ Felix said, to no one in particular. He reached into his belt pouch and filched out a bit of dried meat. It was all that remained of the supplies they’d taken on their journey into the jungle. He gnawed on it hungrily.
‘Probably,’ Gotrek said, slapping him on the back and nearly causing him to choke on the food. ‘Look at it this way, manling – at least you’re in the right place for it.’
‘That’s not comforting, Gotrek,’ Felix said.
‘I wasn’t trying to comfort you,’ Gotrek said. He spat on the hem of Felix’s cloak and used it to wipe rotting flesh from the blade of his axe. ‘Still got your notebook with you, then?’ he continued, as they fell in beside Zabbai.
Felix touched his chest, and felt the square of leather and pages beneath his chainmail. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘why?’
‘No reason,’ Gotrek said, letting his axe rest on his shoulder. ‘If you die, I’ll need to retrieve it. For your replacement, I mean.’
‘My replacement,’ Felix said dully.
‘Well you can’t expect me to go on without a Rememberer, manling,’ Gotrek said with a sniff. ‘That isn’t how it works.’
‘No, no I suppose not,’ Felix said.
Gotrek was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘It’d be a shame, mind.’
‘Would it?’
‘Be a waste, really,’ Gotrek said, not looking at him, ‘all those scribbles you’ve left scattered across the world. Be a shame to have to leave those out of my death-saga.’
‘Yes, it would,’ Felix said, smiling slightly.
‘If you die, my story won’t have as much – what’d you call it – colour? If my doom is to be worthy of a saga, it must have the proper context.’
‘Oh yes, certainly,’ Felix said.
‘Context, manling, is the mortar of legend,’ Gotrek said piously.
‘So I’ve heard,’ Felix said.
‘Dwarf saying, that, very old, very traditional,’ Gotrek added.
‘I’m sure.’
‘Are you laughing at me, manlin
g?’
‘No, Gotrek. I’m merely enthused by the prospect of the coming battle,’ Felix said, not looking at the Slayer. Gotrek eyed him suspiciously for a moment, and then made to slap him on the shoulder. However, the expected blow did not fall. Instead, he gently patted Felix’s arm.
‘Aye, manling, me too,’ Gotrek said. ‘Try not to die, will you?’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Felix said.
Zabbai led them through the city, along the bottom of the wall, until they reached the edge of the city closest to the sea. A group of ushabti were waiting for them. Felix could hear the crash of waves on the other side of the wall.
‘Hail and well met, Daughter of the Spear, Son of the Stone and Man of the Uncivilised Tribes,’ one of the ushabti boomed. It struck the ground with the haft of its weapon. Its fellows followed suit. ‘Have you come to shed blood and share glory with the proud Sons of Asaph?’
‘Hail and well met, O Kharnak, Mighty Sentinel of the White Tower,’ Zabbai said. She raised her axe in greeting. ‘We have come to see off those who would threaten the Gate of Salt and Trade.’ Felix realised that the immense construct was the same one that had been guarding Khalida’s palace when he and Gotrek had first arrived. Zabbai gestured to the warriors that Khalida had sent with them. ‘We bring men.’
‘And a Slayer,’ Gotrek growled.
‘A plan would be preferable, Child of the High Peaks,’ Kharnak said, jaws sagging in what Felix hoped was a smile. ‘We are mighty, but few. Our enemy shall slip past us, like the vermin they are.’
‘None shall get past us, Hero of Ancient Days,’ Zabbai said. ‘We must meet them before they reach the gates, however.’
‘Thy cunning is renowned, Bride of the Axe,’ Kharnak said. He gestured, and the great seaward gates began to open, hauled inwards by gangs of skeletons, who held the massive chains attached to the heavy circular plates set into the centre of each door.
Corroded hinges squealed, and Felix grimaced. As the gate opened, the smell of the Bitter Sea billowed through and across them. Felix held his cloak up to his face to hide his nose and mouth. The sea had acquired its name honestly. It smelt faintly of sulphur. Gotrek slapped the sides of his barrel chest and inhaled loudly.
The Serpent Queen Page 31
