‘Never,’ Neferata shrieked, kicking Khalida in the midsection. Khalida staggered and Neferata lunged, predator’s talons sinking into her midsection. Off-balance, Khalida locked a hand on Neferata’s throat and tore her away. She flung the hissing vampire from the aqueduct.
Below, the dead surrounded the vampire as she staggered to her feet. Looking down at her, Khalida again saw that second face, that ghostly daemon’s mask, even as she had in Bel-Aliad. It leered up at her like a jackal hidden among the rocks of Neferata’s soul. She leapt down and strode forward, lashing out with her staff and catching Neferata on the chin. Neferata hurtled backwards, bouncing off a column. Still, the face clung to her like sweat. Still it leered at Khalida, taunting her silently.
‘Nehekhara is dead, Neferata and all her people with her; why should you escape the fate of the Great Land? Why should you walk in twilight, while your people suffer in darkness?’ she asked, but she already knew the answer. Neferata lived because she was damned and the author of that damnation still plucked at the spider-strands of her soul.
‘Because I am Queen,’ Neferata snarled, lunging up.
Khalida shuddered, leaning on her staff. Neferata had beaten her there, as well. Had left her broken, but not destroyed. She had not seen Neferata since then. Settra’s scourging of the wild coasts and the waters of the Great Ocean had driven the blood-drinkers inland, into the mountains where such beasts belonged.
No. Not beasts, no matter how much she wished to dismiss them as such. Even gripped by her murderous desires, Neferata had been much as Khalida recalled. She was haughty, cunning, cruel… but her cousin still. Khalida had come to realise that even hate gutters low, given enough time. No matter how much you fanned the flames, how many desperate breaths you gave to the dimming fire, even hate burned down to embers. Three times she had faced her cousin, and twice Neferata had resisted the final blow, despite the thing which drove her.
Why? Time and again, Neferata stayed her hand.
‘What possessed you, cousin?’ she said to the stones. ‘What possesses you still?’
There was no response. There never was. But she knew the answer nevertheless.
When she returned to her camp below, Djubti said nothing, for which she was thankful. Weeks bled into months. The camp was a quiet mockery of the military camps she remembered from her youth. Empty tents had been raised for soldiers who no longer needed them and skeletal horses fed dusty fodder and poison water from the Sour Sea. Patrols swept the slopes and valleys and low hills of the region, hunting ghouls and other monsters which sometimes came out of the mountains. She killed a multi-headed chimera in that time and a croaking bat-thing with the horns of a stag. Men with the heads of goats and worse things occasionally boiled out of the dark reaches, braying and snarling.
Her legion met them all and left them to be swallowed by the sands. Too, she met more challengers. A string of petty kings marched or rode to her doorstep, some respectful, others arrogant, down the long decades. With khopesh and staff she struck them all down, one after another. Through it all, Djubti held his own counsel, and the glimmer of suspicion this aroused grew into full flame when, on the next Day of Scorpions, an army five times the size of her own approached.
Hundreds of drums thundered in unison, causing small avalanches and made the ground beneath her feet tremble. Khalida had taken her place at the head of her legion, Djubti by her side. He watched her, as if trying to gauge her reaction. Khalida did not give him the satisfaction of asking the obvious question.
The standards of more than one king rose over the approaching force. Close to a dozen, in fact. If Khalida had been capable of smiling, she might have done so. Some of the standards were familiar, belonging to defeated challengers. Others were new. One, however, stood above them all, the standard of Settra the Imperishable.
‘I warned you,’ Djubti croaked. ‘I warned you, High Queen.’
‘Did you betray me as well?’ Khalida replied. She didn’t look at him. ‘Did you send for him, Djubti? Did you call him to bring me to heel?’
‘Do you think so little of me?’ he said.
Khalida looked at him then. Djubti looked away, his shoulders hunching. She looked back towards the approaching legions. Her legion would not be able to stand long against those which were now arrayed against her. Nonetheless, she would not give up her right. She could not.
A line of chariots rumbled forward, carrying her challengers. Head held high, she walked to meet them. In the centre of the line was a chariot of incomparable ornamentation which bore Settra’s standard. But it was not Settra himself who rode upon it, Khalida realised with a flicker of relief. The dead thing standing tall on the chariot was not the King of Kings, but instead his herald, Nekaph. Glowing eyes blazed out of a fleshless skull, now inscribed with the titles of his master. His jaw did not move, but all could hear his voice nonetheless. The voice was as deep as the sea and as hard as the mountains. ‘Kneel, Khalida of Lybaras. Kneel before the might of Settra the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, King of All Kings of Nehekhara, Lord of the Earth from Horizons Far to Those Near, Monarch of the Sky and Sea, Mighty Lion of the Sands, Great Scorpion of the Dunes, Beautiful Hawk of the Bright Heavens, Emperor of the Shifting Sands and Sweeping Tides, Master of the Great Land,’ Nekaph rumbled, his words humming in her bones. He extended a hand. ‘Kneel, Hawk of Lahmia, kneel Sister-Queen of Lybaras, kneel Beloved Daughter of the Asp goddess. Kneel, or have your skull added to my collection, Mistress of the Serpent Legion.’ Nekaph lifted the great flail that dangled from his other hand for emphasis. Dozens of skulls hung from it, impaled on bronze chains, their sockets alive with hideous awareness.
Khalida knelt, extending her khopesh and staff. Behind her, her legion knelt as well. ‘Welcome, Oh Mighty Voice of Heaven’s Master. Welcome, Herald of the King of Kings and Speaker for the Glorious Dead,’ she said, her voice carrying clearly across the distance.
Nekaph nodded brusquely. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘At least you have not forgotten that.’ The flail clattered. ‘Rise, Hawk of the Poison Dunes. Rise and meet my judgment.’
Khalida rose smoothly. ‘Judgment, Oh Master of Settra’s Wrath? Have I committed an offense?’
‘More than one,’ one of the other kings grated, bones clicking as he gesticulated with pantomime fury. She recognised him as Psashtep of Zandri, one of her challengers from the past few weeks. He motioned sharply with his spear. ‘You dishonour us, Khalida! You make a mockery of Settra’s Edicts!’
‘Have I? Or are you merely squalling like a child who feels his punishment is unfair?’ Khalida said. ‘Come then, Fleet-Master, come and test yourself again and let all gathered here see your failure first-hand.’ She spread her arms in invitation. ‘Come one, come all. Never let it be said that Khalida of Lybaras is unwelcoming of her guests.’
‘She mocks us. See, Nekaph, see how the Hawk screeches at her betters,’ another king rasped. She recognised Ushtep, his arm re-attached.
‘You are no one’s better, bleating goat of Rasetra,’ she said. Ushtep hissed and leapt from his chariot, khopesh in hand. He started forward, but a clatter of Nekaph’s flail stopped him.
‘Enough,’ the Herald said. ‘Silence, petty kings; you barked for Settra’s judgment, and so you shall have it.’ He stepped down from his chariot and moved towards Khalida. As he walked, he spoke. ‘Daughter of the Great Land, you hoard honour as a miser hoards wealth. Such is not meet and such is not the Edict of the Light of Heaven Made Manifest, Blessed Be His Name. Will you surrender your post, daughter?’
‘I will not. I will hold my place until I am beaten on the Day of Scorpions, as the Edict states,’ Khalida said.
‘Such was not the intent,’ Nekaph said solemnly. His wrist bones whispered as they rubbed against one another and the flail of skulls rattled. ‘You must yield, Khalida.’
‘I must not, Herald of the Infinite and Imperishable,’ Khalida said, bowing her head. ‘I cannot.’
Nekaph stopped. She examined him, even
as he did the same to her. Nekaph, it was whispered, even now, was not of the Great Land, but instead of the barbarians of the north. Even in death, even stripped of muscle and meat, he was big. His skull, engraved with the Litany of Settra, was imposing and terrible in the ferocity etched into its grin. His flail, as much a sign of office as it was a weapon, clattered softly, as if in warning. The light in his sockets dimmed. ‘Why?’ he said.
Why? The question rattled in her skull. Why? A face within a face swam before her eyes, both familiar, the one loved, the other loathed. ‘Nagash comes. I will face him,’ she said.
‘Nagash is dust,’ Nekaph said.
‘Nagash stirs,’ Khalida said. ‘The wind from the north blows black, Herald of the Imperishable King. My scouts have seen fires in the night and heard the distant rumble of great mechanisms. A charnel wind blows down upon us, whispering his name.’
‘Or perhaps another’s,’ Nekaph said, softly.
Khalida stiffened, uncertain. Nekaph continued. ‘Do you hunt Nagash, or his handmaiden?’ He motioned with the flail. ‘The blood-drinkers have been driven from the Great Land. They have been driven from the lands which surround ours. That is enough.’ Nekaph took a step closer. ‘Settra has decreed such. To hold here, to spy and stalk among the living, is to disobey him, Hawk of Lybaras. They will not return. Nagash will not return. Thus speaks Settra.’
A drum sounded. Khalida turned as her legions rose and those of the assembled kings shifted in anticipation of treachery. Nekaph grabbed her arm. ‘What is this?’ he said, his tone not quite threatening.
‘A warning drum,’ Khalida said, jerking her arm free, ‘From Nagashizzar, Herald.’ Her eyes glowed bright and cold. ‘Someone – something – has come.’ The ratkin had been uncertain, at first, when she offered them the drums. In the years since, they had sounded them less than a handful of times, and never unnecessarily. Deceitful and treacherous as they were, they knew better than to test her patience. Once, a group of barbarians from the north, the Strigoi, had attempted to breach the gates of Nagashizzar. Another time it had been a small group of liches, former servants of Nagash who had not thrown in with Arkhan or one of the less aggrieved Awakened Kings, attempting to infiltrate the citadel and make off with what treasures remained.
Nekaph released her. Abruptly he turned and began to bellow orders. Khalida did not wait for him. She ran, fleet-footed, towards her legions. There was no need to shout orders. Her sub-commanders reacted with drilled precision, ordering the raising of the standards and the legion turned about as she raced through their ranks. As she passed the front rank, they fell in behind her, running with all the inhuman fluidity the dead possessed. She heard the thump-thump of the drums of Nekaph’s legion and knew that the Herald at least would follow her.
The dead travelled fast, when they wished. In life, her legion could run for a day and a night without rest, and she with them, and they could cover twice the distance of any other force. In death, they were faster still. A day and a night passed and the rocky shores of the Sour Sea gave way to the black marshes, where crooked trees rose from oily water. Hummocks of dry, corrupt-looking earth sprouted at intervals. Some of these were barrows, long buried and forgotten by all but the dead. Others were ruins, left over from Nagash’s time as lord of this filthy place. The marsh grass was stiff and dead and as her legions passed across it, a vast sigh went up and in nearby barrows, the bony fingers of the imprisoned dead scratched vainly at the stones.
They reached the slopes of Cripple Peak even as the enemy did, and Khalida felt a flush of something that might have been triumph as she saw the ghostly forms flowing down the slope like an eerie fog. And within that fog, brown, ancient skeletons clad in tattered brown armour moved awkwardly. There were hundreds of them, barely a tenth of the dead of Nagashizzar, but more than enough to give battle to the armies of the tomb kings. The newly-awakened dead moved without the smoothness of those who had made a home in their bones for centuries. Too, these were not the free dead of the Great Land, but enslaved spirits, bound to a single, malignant will. She and every other Nehekharan felt the hammer-blow of that will as the dead of Nagashizzar stalked towards them. No wonder the ratkin had summoned her.
‘Is it him?’ Nekaph demanded even as his chariot rumbled up beside her in a cloud of dust. The other kings followed him, subdued. Even Djubti was silent.
‘I do not know,’ Khalida said. But she did. If she had still been alive, her heart would have been thundering in her chest. Her mind felt as if a damp blanket had settled over it, and her marrow itched inside the hollows of her bones. It felt as if there were mice loose within her, running and chewing. She had felt it before, in Bel-Aliad, in Sartosa and on that first night, when she had woken in her tomb in Lybaras, her spirit wrenched from its eternal flight and chained within the mummified husk prepared by her priests and servants. She looked at Nekaph, and she knew that he felt it as well, as did each and every king, even pitiful examples like Ushtep.
The same magic that controlled the pitiful, savage bones loping towards them had awakened the folk of the Great Land centuries before. Nekaph broke the stillness. His skull tilted back and his jaw sagged as an inhuman roar burst forth from the very roots of him. The chariots of the kings lurched forward, leading their legions to war. Khalida lifted her khopesh and gave a dry, ululating cry. Bows were bent back and arrows punctured the sky as her legion responded with inhuman precision. In life, they could fire three arrows as fast as they could take a step. In death, it was five.
Brown bones slumped, shattered or knocked sprawling by the rain of arrows. The chariots of Nekaph and the rest reached them a moment later. The Herald’s skull-flail snapped out in lethal arcs as he drove into the disorganised mass of the enemy dead. Khalida followed his trail, her khopesh licking out to put an end to those things still capable of movement. The air was thick and she could feel the ghostly fingers of a necromancer prying at her thoughts.
Nekaph staggered on his chariot and she knew something similar was happening to him. To all the kings, she realised a moment later, as Ushtep’s blade barely missed cleaving her skull. The fire in his eyes had changed colour and his lips wriggled like worms on his skull as he attacked her. He was not the only one, and legion turned on legion as the unseen necromancer pulled on the skeins of magics which bound their souls. Khalida wasted no words on Ushtep. Her khopesh flashed, cutting through his spine and he fell in two places, twitching and cursing. One of her own warriors jabbed at her with a spear even as one of the brown-boned dead of Nagashizzar attached her with a crude sword. She caught both weapons on her staff and khopesh and she and her opponents turned in a circle. A blast of crackling fire consumed one a moment later and she swiftly dispatched the other, nodding her thanks to Djubti.
‘Someone plays with us,’ she said.
‘He’ll regret that, soon enough,’ Djubti said. He pointed. ‘The Herald needs help.’
Khalida turned. Nekaph’s chariot was under attack by the wraiths she’d seen earlier. Ghostly warriors crawled all over the Herald’s war-chariot, striking at him with ethereal weapons. He roared and swung his flail, his blows tearing through the foggy substance of the phantoms and dispersing them.
She ran towards the Herald. But someone else got there first.
A pale shape, graceful and lethal, seemed to swim through the air. A sword came down, chopping into the Herald’s collarbone. Nekaph grappled with his attacker as his chariot continued to plunge through the enemy. The Herald was off-balance, but even one-handed, he was as dangerous as anything that stalked the Great Land. He grabbed a handful of black hair, yanking his opponent’s head back and something in Khalida cried out as she recognised her cousin.
Neferata, Queen of the City of the Dawn, had returned to Nehekhara.
She moved like a snake, bending and twisting, her sword flashing up to cut through her hair, sacrificing it for freedom. The sword came around quickly, almost too quickly for Khalida to follow. But not too quickly for her to block as
she leapt onto the side of her chariot and interposed her staff. Neferata snarled and her eyes widened. ‘Cousin,’ Khalida said.
‘No!’ Neferata shrieked, flipping backwards onto the skeletal spine of one of the horses pulling the chariot. Khalida stepped onto the front of the chariot without hesitation. Nekaph said something, but she ignored him. She set her foot on the bony shank of the horse and propelled herself towards her cousin. Neferata brought her sword around and the khopesh grated against it. The tableau held for an eye-blink and then both were falling through the air.
Khalida felt her bones burst and re-knit even as she bounded to her feet and lunged through the dust of their impact. Neferata met her, eyes blazing, fangs bared. They strained against one another as chariots and skeletal horsemen swept around them in a wild circle. ‘Surrender, cousin,’ Khalida said. ‘There is no escape this time.’
‘No,’ Neferata said. ‘There is always an escape!’ She drove Khalida back, battering her weapons aside and raising her blade. Khalida waited. Neferata hesitated, the snarl slipping from her face, replaced by – what? ‘Little hawk…’ she began, longing in every syllable.
Then Djubti was there and the moment was lost. The liche priest flung out a hand as he approached and Neferata screamed as her body withered. She staggered back, looking at her hands in horror as her unnatural vitality was drained from her. As Khalida watched, porcelain flesh grew leathery and wrinkled and Neferata’s human face shrank into a beast’s muzzle, like the silently shrieking faces of the desiccated bats she saw sometimes, in the deep places of the mountains. Eyes flashing, Neferata lunged awkwardly at the liche priest, who froze in shock. Only Khalida’s staff, snapping down on her cousin’s back, saved him from having his head torn from his shoulders. She knocked Neferata flat and pressed the butt of her staff to the back of her cousin’s head. Neferata struggled and snapped and snarled, and Khalida saw another form writhing within her, another spirit all tangled up with hers.
Hammer and Bolter: Issue Twenty-Six Page 14
