‘Smell that, manling? It smells like the forges of Barak Varr.’ Gotrek gestured, as if to pull more of the stench into his flared nostrils.
‘Yes, just like that,’ Felix gagged. The Bitter Sea was a dark expanse, stretching across the horizon and back as far as the eye could see. Felix could see the dark ridges of distant shores, obscured by the bitter mist that rolled across the waters.
‘The enemy approaches, Child of the South. Assemble thy forces. We stand ready for your command,’ Kharnak rumbled. Zabbai ordered the archers forward into the archway of the gate. Felix looked out at a scene of destruction.
Out in the harbour, the rotting hulks had smashed through the galleys that had mobilised to block the mouth of the harbour, and, carried forwards by stinking winds conjured by the vampires standing on the decks of the lead ships, they plunged aground. The ancient docks and quays of Lybaras, which had once played host to vessels from a thousand and one ports, were shattered and broken by the heaving, zombie-infested vessels. Ambulatory corpses tumbled from the decks or plunged through the holes in the hulls, and waded ashore, clutching rusty weapons, or reaching out with empty, rotting hands. Undead sea-beasts came with them, things with scales, fins and too many legs, dredged from the mud and silt of the ocean’s bottom and brought to the surface by the dark magics of the besiegers.
Felix watched in horror as the harbour-guard were pulled down by the sheer mass of corpses. The skeletal warriors fought, but they were as rocks in a rushing stream, and were overwhelmed with rapidity. Vampires leapt across the heads and shoulders of the stumbling dead, using the zombies as an undulating walkway right to the harbour gates of the city. Felix’s horror crystallised as he realised that the vampires, led by one clad in a ratty and outsize Sartosian captain’s coat, headed right for him. He glanced at Zabbai, who motioned the archers to ready themselves to fire. A servant scuttled down the line with a lit taper clutched in one fleshless hand, touching it to each arrowhead.
‘Those corpses look too damp to set fire to,’ he said doubtfully.
‘The arrows aren’t for the corpses,’ Zabbai said. She roared out a command. The fire-arrows were loosed, and the archers immediately retreated back through the gates, replaced by a line of a hundred tomb-guards wielding heavy shields and halberds, and marching in lock-step. The armoured skeletons filled the harbour gates from hinge to post. Zabbai gently pushed Felix back behind the line of shields. The burning volley struck the beached vessels. The hulks caught quickly, despite their state. In moments, an inferno blazed behind the approaching horde. Zabbai raised her axe again, and brought it down. The tomb-guard began to march. They formed a moving shield-wall, and crashed into the front rank of zombies. Instead of fighting them, however, they locked shields and crossed halberds, creating an unbreakable bulwark.
‘Ha! That’s the way,’ Gotrek roared. ‘That’s the dwarf way. Maybe you humans did learn some of what we taught you.’ Slowly but steadily, the tomb-guard began to push the clawing, groaning dead back. The vampires, however, were a different matter. They used the tomb-guard as they had the zombies, springing onto their shoulders and heads and leaping off. The one in the coat gave a screech and she and her companions loped forwards.
Zabbai stepped forward. ‘We must keep them from getting into the city,’ she said.
‘Agreed,’ Felix said. ‘How about we step back inside and close the gates?’
‘That’s no fun,’ Zabbai said, and sprinted to meet the vampires. Felix sighed and looked at Gotrek.
The Slayer grinned. ‘I like her, manling. If she were several centuries younger and still breathing, I’d pledge your troth for you myself.’ He gestured and they started after Zabbai. Behind them, Felix could hear the ushabti beginning to move as well, with a sound like stone grinding on stone.
‘Oh no, you remember what happened last time you arranged a marriage for me?’
Gotrek frowned. ‘I didn’t know they were filthy Moot-scum. They lied to me.’
‘You didn’t ask.’ Felix said. Zabbai had already engaged the lead vampire. The ushabti had engaged the others, driving the vampires back with powerful sweeps from their halberds. The constructs fought with an unearthly grace, almost equal to that of their undead opponents, and the unliving and the undead whirled about in a dance of blades that Felix found almost impossible to follow.
‘They hoodwinked me. Deceitful little beasts,’ Gotrek said, and spat. ‘I hate halflings.’ He lifted his axe and smashed aside a blow that would’ve split his skull, crown to teeth. The vampire staggered, off balance, and Felix smoothly spitted her with Karaghul. As she fell, Gotrek’s axe severed her head. The dwarf kicked it aside and said, ‘I hate blood-suckers more, though.’
‘Well, feel free to work out your frustrations,’ Felix said.
‘Thank you, manling, I think I will,’ Gotrek said. He raised his axe and bellowed a war-cry in Khazalid. Then he charged towards the closest vampire. A moment later, the battle was joined. Zombies stumbled past the shield-wall, and things devolved into a confused melee of bone against dead flesh.
Felix sliced the head from a zombie, and looked for Gotrek. The battle heaved back and forth. The burning ships in the harbour continued to disgorge dead men, who splashed to shore and joined the battle. While the Nehekharans had the advantage of skill, their enemy was seemingly numberless.
He caught sight of the Slayer wrenching his axe out of the chest of a vampire. The woman screeched and clawed at Gotrek’s arm as he let the axe fall again, removing her head. He turned and punched a fist through a zombie, shattering its spine. Felix was about to join the Slayer, when he saw Zabbai. The Herald of Lybaras was surrounded by several vampires, and she was isolated from any aid her warriors of the ushabti might have given. As Felix watched, blades chopped into her torso and shoulders. Zabbai was fast, but her opponents were equally swift, and the Herald had taken more than her share of knocks recently. Zabbai staggered. Her axe snapped out, beheading one of the vampires, but the others were on her in an instant, like jackals pulling down a wounded lioness.
Felix raced towards them. Zabbai had been hurt time and again protecting him. He couldn’t let her fall now. Felix drove Karaghul through the back of one of the vampires, eliciting a shriek of agony. ‘Gotrek,’ he shouted, ‘help me!’
He didn’t wait to see whether or not the Slayer had heard him. He dragged his blade free and brought it around to block a blow from another vampire. The creature snarled and shoved him back. Before she could attack, Gotrek’s axe sank into her belly, lifting her off her feet. Felix whirled to see Zabbai fall beneath the lightning-quick blows of the vampire in the coat. She collapsed and the vampire’s sword flashed, chopping through the haft of her axe and rendering her weapon useless.
Felix raced towards them, knowing even as he did so that he wouldn’t reach them in time. He could hear Gotrek roaring and cursing in his wake. Then the ushabti called Kharnak was there. A stone fist shot forward, catching the vampire a blow on the back of the head, hurling her towards the open gates. The vampire hit the ground, rolled to her feet and then vanished into the city.
Felix sank to his knees beside Zabbai, as did Kharnak. ‘Do you yet persist, Daughter of the Spear?’ the statue rumbled. From what Felix could see, there was no reason she should. Zabbai’s mummified form was covered in bloodless wounds and where her bones were visible through her funerary wrappings, they were notched and splintered.
‘Zabbai,’ he said, lifting her head. She grabbed his hand.
‘I still live,’ she wheezed. ‘But my fight is over. I am broken inside. One of them got into the city. She will attempt to open the gates to the enemy. I cannot pursue her. You must do so, Felix. You must catch her, and you must take my place at my queen’s side.’
Gotrek came up behind Felix. ‘Aye, we’ll catch her, crow-bait. You rest easy,’ the Slayer said. ‘Come on, manling,’ he continued, stumping towards the open gate. Fel
ix looked up at Kharnak.
‘Take care of her,’ he said, as he rose to his feet. Then, without a backward glance, he ran after Gotrek.
Chapter 23
Gotrek and Felix pursued the vampire through the empty, moonlit streets of Lybaras in silence. The Slayer, despite the wounds that covered his tattooed frame, seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy. Felix felt exhaustion gnawing at the edges of his consciousness, but he shook it off with grim determination. There would be time to sleep later, if he wasn’t dead.
He couldn’t say what the vampire hoped to accomplish. Opening the gates was all well and good, but it wasn’t as if the enemy could occupy the city. Not with Khalida’s forces ahead of them. Then, given the sheer number of rotting corpses pressing against the defenders outside the walls, it wasn’t inconceivable that they could simply force their way in. Unless, of course, there was already a group waiting outside, ready to take advantage of the open gate. Felix imagined the catapults on the walls being turned on the city, or, worse, on Khalida’s forces outside its walls.
They followed the same route back that Zabbai had taken to lead them to the seaward gate. The city was as silent as ever, and as they ran, Felix wondered how many more generations of warriors waited for Khalida’s silent command to rise from their slumber and march into battle. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. They moved along the base of the wall, and Felix’s ears throbbed with the clamour of battle. The walls occasionally shuddered with impacts from the enemy’s siege weapons.
Overhead, bats and worse things – undead flying reptiles, birds and shrieking conglomerations of bat and beast – attacked the walls. Occasionally, one would plummet down inside the walls, riddled with arrows. More often, a skeleton warrior would be plucked from the wall and sent hurtling to the ground. Some would begin to repair themselves almost immediately, while others would lie in a heap, shattered beyond their own ability to pull themselves together.
When they reached the gate, its guardians were already lying in broken piles, and the vampire stood before the gates, her hands pressed to the ancient metal portcullis. The skeleton warriors on the walls were occupied fighting off the zombies clambering up scaling ladders and the swirling swarms of bats, and had no attention to spare for one lone vampire. He shared a look with Gotrek, and the Slayer nodded and put on a burst of speed.
As they raced towards the vampire, she spat a stream of guttural syllables and the air around her became charged with a bitter energy. As Felix drew closer, he saw the metal of the gates grow rusty and begin to flake away, as if millennia of neglect had passed in mere moments. Even as the vampire whirled to face them, the gates began to collapse with a bone-rattling roar of cracking stone and tearing metal. A wave of dust washed over them, momentarily hiding the vampire from sight.
Felix blinked, trying to clear his eyes. When he could see again, the first thing he saw was the tip of a sword darting towards his face. Gotrek shoved him aside and met the blow with his axe. The bit of his axe split the sword blade in two and continued on into the shoulder of its wielder. The vampire screeched and fell. Gotrek tore the blade loose and ended her cries a moment later.
‘We were too late,’ Felix coughed.
‘Then we’ll just have to make up for it. On your feet, manling,’ Gotrek growled. Dozens of grey shapes loped through the remains of the gate, howling and snarling. Felix scrambled to his feet as the first of the ghouls reached them. It was these creatures that the vampire had been intending to let in. Gotrek struck the corpse-eaters like a bolt from the blue, his axe wreaking red havoc amongst them. Felix followed suit, and soon, most of the ghouls were scrambling away from them, wailing in fear. Some had made it into the city, but he and Gotrek had blunted the attack.
‘After them,’ Gotrek said. He bounded in pursuit of the fleeing ghouls, and his axe left several of the corpse-eaters lolling dead in his wake. Felix followed more slowly. Gotrek had caught up with the ghouls, who’d crashed into others of their kind still intent on entering the city, in the centre of the arch of the gate, and he tore through the lot of them with gleeful abandon. Felix looked past the slaughter towards the battle, which showed no signs of ending anytime soon.
Chariots rumbled past the gate, and the tomb-kings mounted in them sent arrows or javelins hurtling into the mass of enemy dead that staggered forward stubbornly. Neither army could be broken in the conventional way. It was a slugging match, with two fighters who would neither retreat nor give up pounding away at one another beneath the silver glare of the moon. At any other time, Felix might have felt some small measure of fear, but now he simply felt numb. Like the battle they’d witnessed in the crater, the scene before him seemed as if it could continue for an eternity.
The head of a ghoul, a surprised expression on its face, bounced past him. He looked over to see Gotrek kicking bodies aside. Those ghouls he hadn’t managed to butcher were fleeing quickly, their lanky shapes vanishing into the fog of war. ‘We should get out there,’ Felix said. Gotrek looked at him in something that might have been shock. Before the Slayer could say anything, Felix said, ‘We promised Zabbai we’d protect Khalida.’ He pointed with his sword. ‘I can see her standard.’
Gotrek nodded brusquely, and he and Felix stepped through the open gate. The battle heaved back and forth on all sides. Zombies staggered towards the open gate on awkward limbs, and skeletal horsemen, clad in the ragged remnants of armour and silk robes, swept after them. Felix hesitated, but he knew there was nothing they could do to stop them. Holding the gate would serve no purpose, and wouldn’t be possible – not with only the two of them. He could only hope that Khalida had foreseen and planned for such an eventuality. The sky was thick with bats and the decayed hulks of carrion, and dead men battled all around them. They were forced to defend themselves more than once as they fought their way towards the centre of the battlefield, where Khalida’s standard swayed above the battle.
For a moment, the tide of battle ebbed, and Felix saw past the struggling corpses, to where Khalida’s chariot raced through the enemy ranks, crushing zombies beneath its wheels. Then, from above them, a monstrous cry echoed down. Felix felt his blood turn to water in his veins and he looked up. A monstrous bat, the size of a dragon, dropped towards the battlefield from the sky, and on its back was an armoured figure he knew could only be the enemy leader, the creature who claimed the title of Serpent Queen for herself.
‘Terrorgheist,’ Gotrek spat. ‘Trust a blood-sucker to pick one of those for a mount.’
The terrorgheist landed with a crash atop Khalida’s chariot, smashing the bone-horses to flinders. The massive beast’s jaws closed around the head and shoulders of Khalida’s driver with a crunch as it snapped the skeleton up and flung it aside. Khalida rolled free of the wreckage and drove her staff into the monster’s snout, causing it to rear back. A vast, tattered wing snapped out, forcing Khalida to leap back. The edges of the wing tore across her belly, ripping ancient wrappings and scattering incense and dried flesh across the sands. Khalida retreated, clutching her stomach.
‘Gotrek, we have to help her,’ Felix said.
‘Help her if you wish, manling,’ Gotrek said, his eye fixed on the terrorgheist. ‘But that oversized cave-squealer is mine.’ He charged, his axe held in both hands. But before the Slayer could get far, a shape slammed into him, staggering him. Felix stopped as he recognized Steyr – the vampire was attacking Gotrek so quickly that he appeared to be coming at the dwarf from every direction at once. Gotrek roared and spun in place, his axe licking out and just missing the vampire, who skidded back in a cloud of dust, before lunging forward again. Before his blade could reach Gotrek, Felix managed to interpose Karaghul. Steyr snarled and his head shot forward to connect with Felix’s, staggering him. With his ears ringing and his vision blurred by the pain ricocheting through his skull, Felix stumbled back. Steyr followed him.
‘You killed my sister,’ he hissed, ‘you and that
damned dwarf.’
‘Aye, and I’ll send you to join her directly, blood-sucker,’ Gotrek roared. His axe nearly took off Steyr’s sword arm, but the vampire hopped back with lightning alacrity. Steyr retreated before them.
‘Maybe so,’ the vampire hissed, ‘but not before Queen Nitocris kills the corpse-woman.’ He lunged, too quickly for the eye to follow, and his blade licked across Gotrek’s bicep and shoulder, eliciting a growl from the Slayer. Steyr leapt over the Slayer and his blade sang out, connecting with Karaghul. Felix reeled from the power of the blow. Steyr seemed fully capable of occupying him and Gotrek, which was disconcerting, to say the least.
‘He’s right, Gotrek,’ Felix said.
‘No he’s not,’ Gotrek spat. ‘I’ll kill him directly, manling. I’m just taking my time.’
‘Take as much time as you need, master dwarf,’ Steyr said mockingly. He shot forwards, dust and sand curling away from him as his blade skidded off Gotrek’s axe and drew blood from the side of the dwarf’s head. Gotrek’s hand shot out and grabbed a handful of Steyr’s jerkin, and with a grunt he sent the vampire flying.
Felix took advantage of Steyr’s predicament, lunging to meet the vampire as he rose to his feet. Their blades met, and Felix twisted Karaghul so that the hilts locked. ‘Gotrek, go! Help Khalida! I’ll see to this varlet,’ he shouted. Gotrek hesitated, but only for a moment. The Slayer resumed his charge towards Nitocris and Khalida.
‘Varlet,’ Steyr said. ‘I find thy speech offensive and off-putting, Jaeger.’
‘Not as much as I find thy stench,’ Felix said, straining to hold Steyr’s blade pinned.
‘For a man who dislikes Tarradasch so much, you do like quoting him – The Loves of Ottokar and Myrmidia?’ Steyr said. He ripped his blade free of Felix’s, and nearly took off the latter’s leg in the process.
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