Neferata

FIVE

Bel Aliad burned as Neferata led her warriors over the hastily erected barricades. She wore thin black robes and a voluminous hood and scarf to hide her from the sun, and light leather armour sewn with hammered copper discs over the former. The horse she rode was a sleek desert stallion, ungelded and almost as savage as its rider. She drummed her heels into its glossy black flanks and it leapt over the fire-pots the defenders had lit without hesitation. Her sword snapped out like a scorpion’s stinger, and a man screamed as she split both a spear and the hands holding it.

She jerked the reins and her horse spun, lashing out with its hooves as she chopped at those defenders who had not retreated at her arrival. Wildcat screams heralded the arrival of her handmaidens. Like her, they rode the pride of the nomad herds and wore flowing black robes and hoods to protect them from the merciless attentions of the sun that played witness to the ensuing slaughter.

‘Drive them back!’ she howled, waving her sword over her head. ‘The city will be ours!’ As she said it, the words burned like bitter poison in her mouth. Bel Aliad, for all of its vaunted splendour, was not Lahmia. It was a shadow of the great tomb-cities of Nehekhara, a sad attempt by the Arabyans to ape their betters.

It was not Lahmia. It was nothing. But it would be hers. If Lahmia was lost to her, then she would have Bel Aliad. She would be a queen again, despite Alcadizzar and despite Nagash. At the thought of his name, a nauseated shudder ran through her. Nagash had demanded her servitude, but she had defied him. Let the others sup from his scraps like the dogs they were. She would make her own way.

She slashed and thrust about her as spears sought her vitals from every corner. The defenders had grown complacent; they had not realised the size of her army. Though W’soran’s attack had scattered many of the tribes, enough had remained to create a force large enough to threaten more than just the trade routes between Bel Aliad and Khemri.

She snarled and sent a man spinning away, his face opened to the bone. She was painfully aware that even this attack served Nagash in some way, preventing any outside aid from reaching Nehekhara in time. She had seen the first few refugees of the Great Plague, and knew that it was without a doubt Nagash’s doing.

Nehekhara was dying, as Lahmia had died. Part of her felt a vicious satisfaction at the thought, but another, more practical part knew that Nagash would not be satisfied with the throne of Khemri. No… the Great Necromancer wanted the world, and he would crush the thrones of the earth beneath his feet to get it.

As an immortal, she had become used to having a wealth of time to contemplate such gambits, but now, time was at a premium. How long would it take her homeland to die? How long until an army of rotting, plague-infested corpses stumbled across the sea of sand and scratched at the walls of the Arabyan caliphates?

If she could take Bel Aliad — and from there the other caliphates — and unify them into a mighty kingdom, then she might be able to stop him. She might be the only one who could. Ordinarily, pitting herself against Nagash would be the last thing on her mind. But her experience in the desert had taught her that there was nowhere to run. Nagash was the wolf at the door of the world.

Then, there was the fact that the Great Necromancer had insulted her. And no man, alive or dead, insulted Neferata and lived.

She would take Araby and her peoples and forge them into a sword to thrust into Nagash’s sour, black heart—

The arrow caught her by surprise, sprouting as if by magic from her thigh. Another slapped home in her chest, nearly wrenching her from her saddle. She looked up. Archers made ready on the sloping rooftops of the buildings nearest the barricades. She gestured with her sword and Naaima kicked her horse into a gallop, leading Rasha and a few others towards the closest of the bowmen. Naaima leapt from her mount to the edge of the roof. Arrows sped towards her and her sword knocked them from the air as she attacked the unprepared archers. Men screamed and died as the other handmaidens followed suit.

Neferata growled in satisfaction. She urged her horse forwards. The defenders were falling back now, though not in an organised fashion, and retreating towards one of the city’s many market squares. Men trampled one another in their haste to escape the attacking tribesmen. Bloodlust stirred in her and she gave herself up to it gladly. She had restrained herself for months now, whetting her appetite for the coming bloodletting. Now she unleashed the pent-up aggression, flogging her horse forwards after the fleeing warriors. She hacked at their backs and upraised limbs, sheathing her arm in a sleeve of red.

She was laughing when the first lance caught her horse in its chest. It squealed and fell, forcing her to dive from the saddle. She sprang to her feet, sword licking out. The armoured Kontoi of Bel Aliad had arrived. The lancers wore robes sewn through with flat iron plates and heavy helmets that covered their faces. Their lances were weighty spears of wood that could bring down even the heaviest horse. They met the nomads in a tangle of metal and flesh, and the Kontoi’s greater mass began to prevail. Neferata found herself buffeted by horses and she leapt upwards, her claws snagging a Kontoi’s armoured coat. She snarled into the man’s helmet and then snapped his neck.

The sword nearly chopped through her arm as the dead man fell away from her. The Kontoi wore a finer coat than the others and brightly coloured silks dangled from his helmet in a rainbow halo. The sword seemed to writhe in his hand like a thing alive, and the sigils inscribed on the blade hurt her eyes. What was this? What was it—?

She fell back as the warrior swung at her again. The blade sizzled as it cut the air and it seemed to shiver. She fell from the horse and slid between its legs. She slashed the warrior’s saddle strap with her claws, sending him crashing to the ground. The square was filled with heaving, stamping horses and men and the sky was growing dark. Night was falling.

She rose, flinging back her hood. The Kontoi scrambled to his feet. He had lost his sword in the fall. With a yell, he dived for it even as she lunged for him, catching it up as she landed on him. She spun him around and hurled him into a wall hard enough to crack the brick. The warrior staggered, but remained standing.

Neferata eyed him warily. Her arm was slow to heal, and black froth collected in the open wound as steam rose from it. It ached abominably. She had been hurt in such a way only once before, when she had faced Alcadizzar before the gates of Lahmia and he had driven a knife into her heart. The sword was something fell and old. It was of foreign design, reminding her of the weapons she had seen in the marketplaces of Cathay, brought from the forges of the lands beyond the Great Bastion. Perhaps it was a daemon weapon of some kind, then. She would have more time to study it after she had torn it from the dead hands of its current wielder.

She stood up straight and stalked slowly towards him. ‘You fight well, warrior,’ she said, extending a hand. ‘Tell me your name, won’t you?’

The man hesitated. Her eyes caught his, holding them. She pressed her will down the length of the distance between them, hammering his. Slowly, almost grudgingly, he pulled his helmet off and tossed it aside, revealing a handsome, hawkish face. He was young. ‘I am Khaled al Muntasir, witch, and I am your death!’ he said, raising the sword. The blade shook ever so slightly, straining towards her like a dog on a leash. Khaled was sweating from more than just exertion. She could taste his fear, not just of her, but also of the weapon he held.

‘If you fear it so much, why not lay it aside, Khaled al Muntasir?’ she said. Her voice caressed him, piercing his mind and soul. She could do much with her voice. It had allowed her to conquer without raising a single weapon. But it took time to do it properly, and time was something she did not have. She reached out towards Khaled. ‘Put the blade down, boy,’ she purred, letting the soft tones envelop him. ‘Put it down…’

He blinked and trembled. She was impressed. His resistance was remarkable. Then, perhaps that was the influence of the sword. She would have to learn where he had obtained it. Such a potent weapon might be useful in the coming days—

He lashed out. She narrowly stepped aside and hissed as she felt the foul heat clinging to the blade. She slashed him across the face and he cried out. She grabbed his sword hand and pushed the blade away. Her other hand found his throat and forced him back against the wall. She looked into his eyes, flattening his will beneath her own. The sword was loose in his grip. She made to shake his arm, but a shout stopped her before she could.

‘Neferata, look out!’ Naaima screamed from somewhere above.

Neferata spun, only to catch a lance full in the chest. She was slammed backwards into the wall. A scream burst out of her as the lance buried itself in her ribcage and burst out through her back, pinning her to the wall. Her screams pealed wildly as she thrashed and struggled like a bug caught on a pin. She clawed at the wood desperately. Her feet were too far above the ground and her mind was too disordered by the pain to effect a shape-change.

Khaled chopped down on the lance. He shattered it, but she was still pinned. Coughing, blood and foam running down her front, she reached for him. Horror in his eyes, he stepped back and readied the sword. It made a hungry sound as it pierced her heart.

It was only as the darkness closed in that she saw the hand that had wielded the lance that had pinned her. She carried Abhorash’s frown down into the dark with her…

‘It was risky,’ Naaima said, sipping delicately out of a cup. ‘You are far too incautious, Neferata. He would have been well within his rights to have killed you. Abhorash—’

Neferata made a dismissive gesture. ‘Abhorash is still my strong right hand, whether he knows it or not. His sense of honour is a trap none of us can escape.’ She sipped from her own cup and looked around the apartment she had been given. It had once belonged to Strezyk, and was now hers by right of conquest. Apparently such was quite common in Mourkain, among the most rambunctious of the city’s aristocracy.

It was located in one of the larger buildings of the city, a tower that was almost beautiful after a fashion, and through its great window the diverse and myriad smells of Mourkain infiltrated the chambers. Braziers of burning incense hid the stink of blood which emanated from the upside down, barely-alive figure dangling from one of the many hooks dangling from the ceiling.

He was a criminal, she had been told. It was Ushoran’s practice to feed only from those accused of crimes, or from prisoners of war, a standard he held his followers to. Privately, Neferata thought it wise; nothing irritated a populace more than indiscriminate murder. She had learned that to her cost in Bel Aliad.

‘My lady, we’ve rounded them all up at last,’ Khaled said.

‘Speak of the beast,’ she murmured. Then, louder, she said, ‘How many?’

‘Six, my lady,’ Anmar said, flopping down on one of the great cushions which lay scattered across the floor of the chamber. ‘Not a fighter in the bunch. And one step above the great apes of Ind as far as brains go,’ she added with a snort.

‘Such sharp fangs, my little leopard,’ Neferata said, rising from her own cushions. ‘Intelligence and fighting ability can be taught. And if not, well…’

Khaled smiled. ‘Well indeed, my lady. Strezyk had good taste as far as looks went.’

Neferata frowned. ‘Careful, Khaled, your more unpleasant proclivities are showing. It is not a look which suits you.’ She gestured imperiously. ‘Bring them in.’

‘What are you planning, if not to stock our larder?’ Naaima said.

‘I am planning to see that others stock it for us,’ Neferata said. ‘We need friends. Strezyk took the pick of the booty when it came to certain prisoners of war, something which won him no allies in Ushoran’s little newborn snake-pit. We will not make the same mistake.’

Khaled brought the women in. They huddled together, stinking of fear. Barely-healed bite marks covered their arms and thighs and Neferata repressed a hiss of disgust. Strezyk had been a cruel master, that much was certain. And while cruelty had its place, practised on the helpless it was mere sadism, and as such worthless and, worst of all, pointless. For Neferata, cruelty was the tip of the blade you twisted to force action. To practise it on wretches like these was gross indulgence. Once again she reflected that Strezyk was no loss.

The women were as beautiful as Khaled had said. They were former barbarian princesses, the daughters, young wives and cousins of conquered chieftains and warlords. But the haughtiness had been beaten out of them, and at least one had been bled almost white. Broken in body and mind, Ushoran probably expected her to drain them and throw them away.

But she had other plans.

She took the chin of a red-headed beauty and turned her face to the light. ‘Where are Stregga and Rasha?’ Neferata said as she examined the woman’s broad features.

‘Stregga is where you sent her, courting that brute Vorag,’ Naaima said. ‘And Rasha is—’

‘Rasha is investigating this edifice,’ Khaled said smoothly. Naaima glared at him, and he smiled. ‘As you requested, my lady,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ Neferata said absently. On the ride to Mourkain, Vorag had displayed undue attention to the blonde Sartosan. Stregga had been only too happy to indulge those attentions. And Rasha, born raider that she was, was as cunning and stealthy as any beast of the desert. If anyone could sneak about without alerting the spies that Ushoran had undoubtedly already placed around her chambers, it was her.

She looked the red-head in the eyes. ‘What is your name?’ she said. The woman looked at her blankly. Neferata squeezed her cheeks gently, with only the softest of pressures. There was a flash in the woman’s eyes, a buried spark of resistance. Neferata smiled. ‘Never mind, we have time to get acquainted. Naaima, see that they are bathed and properly clothed and fed. Strezyk appears to have been a firm believer in keeping them hungry.’ She released the woman and watched as Naaima led the girls out, considering. ‘Khaled, I wish you to get acquainted to those men in Ushoran’s personal guard. They’re made up of the firstborn sons of the agals — the Strigoi nobles. Find out whether their loyalties lie to Ushoran, the throne or their families.’

‘Of course, it would be my pleasure, but why?’ Khaled said.

‘You’re questioning me again, my Kontoi. Is that wise, do you think?’ she said without turning around.

‘I merely wish to understand your grand strategy, milady,’ Khaled said.

Neferata smiled briefly. ‘My strategy, dear Khaled, is to learn all that I can in order to ensure that our new kingdom survives longer than the last.’

The door thumped. Neferata turned. ‘Ah. And here comes another source of information now. Stay here. I will see him alone.’

She left her private rooms and entered the audience chamber. She strode swiftly to the door and threw it open, startling the two guards Ushoran had posted in the corridor. They eyed her cautiously, having been part of her predecessor’s guard. They had seen what she had done to Strezyk, and she could smell their fear.

‘Milady, Thane Silverfoot—’

‘Thane Silverfoot wants a drink. D’you fancy a drink, Neferata of Lahmia?’ Razek said, stepping past her into the room. He looked at the barren chamber and snorted. ‘Do you even have anything to drink?’

Amused, Neferata nodded to the guards and closed the door. One of them would doubtless be reporting to Ushoran. She turned to face the dwarf. ‘I believe there’s something in Strezyk’s cabinets, yes.’ She moved to the cabinets and plucked out a clay jug that sloshed promisingly. It had dust on it. She handed it to Razek, who pulled the cork with his teeth and took a swig. He made a face as he swallowed it.

‘Terrible,’ he said.

‘Yes, I expect so. Strezyk seems to have been deplorably lacking in taste.’

‘I heard he had an accident,’ Razek said gruffly. He looked uncomfortable. Neferata knew that the dwarf was still feeling put out. Messages had been sent to Silver Pinnacle, via methods known only to the dwarf himself, letting King Borri know that his son yet lived. There were a number of dwarf traders and not a few itinerant miners in the city and Neferata suspected that one of them, or even several, had been bullied into taking word to Karaz Bryn.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And you’ve taken his place.’

‘Also yes,’ she said. Razek looked at her. After a moment, he nodded.

‘Good,’ he said simply.

Neferata smiled. ‘Gold,’ she corrected. ‘That is what this is about, I understand.’

Razek stared at the flames. ‘My people are interested in opening proper trade with Mourkain,’ he said.

‘Is it your people,’ she asked, ‘or your king?’

‘Not just him,’ he said.

‘You don’t approve,’ she said.

‘I have a longer memory, even when it comes to gold. We used to trade with Mourkain many years ago as you manlings judge things. Back when Kadon was running the works,’ Razek said. He shuddered slightly. ‘Brrr, he was a bad one, old Kadon. Sour, like a bad patch of tunnel, and touched in the head.’ He tapped his head for emphasis.

Intrigued, Neferata let him talk. Ushoran had been stubbornly close-mouthed when it came to his coup; at least she assumed that it had been a coup. He had always been a plotter, her Lord of Masks. It was just too bad that his plots always unravelled in the end.

‘They said he found something down deep in the dark, and that it spoke to him and broke him,’ Razek said in a faraway voice, as if reciting a children’s bedtime story. ‘Dwarfs know about that sort of thing. We know better than any man or elf what gnaws at the roots of the mountains and what coils in the dark beneath the world.’ He tipped the jug and the contents dribbled into his beard. ‘He used the dead,’ Razek spat. ‘That’s what did it. He forced the dead to serve him. That’s a power no mortal should have, let alone a creature like mad, bad Kadon.’

Neferata sat silently, digesting this new fact. She thought again of the black sun, and the voice like needles on bone. She suspected that it had spoken to Abhorash, but Ushoran? If he wasn’t the cause, what was? The stones beneath her feet seemed to tremble like the flank of a purring cat. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. ‘But things are different now,’ she said, prodding gently.

He grunted. ‘King Borri feels that what’s done is done.’

‘Not a very dwarf-like attitude,’ she said.

Razek looked at her. ‘Careful, woman, any other dwarf would have taken that for an insult. No, my father is practical. It’s why he made me his hearth-warden, after all.’

‘A prince and a spymaster,’ Neferata said. ‘Impressive.’

‘I’ve always thought so. Besides, who can a king trust but family?’

‘In my homeland, the answer was “anyone else”,’ Neferata said, smiling. ‘Perhaps dwarfs are different.’

‘We are. We are nothing like you, Neferata of Lahmia,’ Razek said seriously. ‘If your race survives for a million-million years you will never accomplish a third of what my people have forgotten.’

Neferata frowned. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps we will accomplish more.’

Razek chuckled. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he rumbled. ‘I owe you a debt, woman,’ Razek added, handing the empty jug to her. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’ll be doing all of my business with you.’

Neferata smiled. It was exactly as she had been hoping. ‘You honour me, Thane,’ she said, inclining her head.

‘I’ve already sent messages off to that effect to King Borri, may his fundament warm the throne for centuries yet,’ Razek said. ‘And I’ll be informing Ushoran as well.’ He squinted. ‘He’s a weasel that one, but I trust you to keep accounts settled.’

‘I’ve always had a head for figures,’ Neferata said, upending the jug. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. Razek grunted. ‘Anything else I can do for you, mighty thane?’

‘Get something better to drink. We’ll need to keep our throats wet if we’re to dicker properly,’ he said, turning towards the door.

Neferata watched him go. She let the jug fall and laughed as it shattered. But it was only a brief noise. Sobriety returned quickly. ‘Did you hear any of that?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ Khaled said, stepping out of her chambers. Anmar followed him. ‘Foul creature,’ he said.

‘But useful,’ Neferata said, kicking aside a broken shard of the jug. She rubbed her chin, thinking.

‘Yes, you are good at finding tools, are you not, my lady?’

Neferata spun, her eyes darting to the door to her private chambers. Khaled’s sword sprang into his hand and he lunged smoothly, followed by Anmar. The siblings leapt for the bulky shape which had entered the audience chamber behind them on noiseless feet. Taloned paws caught the blades of both swords and sent the two vampires crashing to the floor in a heap.

‘You left the window open,’ Ushoran said through a thicket of fangs. He had forsaken his guise from earlier, revealing his true monstrous visage. He was covered in so much muscle that he was forced to stoop over. He balanced on his knuckles and his bat-like face had lost all traces of humanity. His fine clothes had been replaced by a simple loincloth that flapped alarmingly as he sank into a squat. Beady eyes fastened on Neferata and a tongue like a red worm darted out, dabbing at a bit of dried blood that clung to the lipless jaws.

‘I wasn’t aware I would be receiving visitors through any other aperture than the door,’ Neferata said, waving Khaled and Anmar aside. The two looked at Ushoran in horrified fascination. Neferata wondered what they made of the other vampire, inhuman as he was.

‘I find the climb refreshing,’ Ushoran said. His red eyes swivelled. ‘You’ve broken a jug. How clumsy. Did I startle you?’

‘No. I simply didn’t like it.’

‘You still have a propensity for breaking things you don’t like, then?’ Ushoran eyed Khaled and Anmar.

‘Only jugs,’ Neferata said. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure, my lord?’ she said, bowing shallowly.

‘I wished to speak to you, away from prying eyes,’ Ushoran said. He reached out, snagged a bit of the jug and scraped at the floor with it. Neferata looked at the shape he had cut into the floor and grunted.

‘Go,’ she said, gesturing sharply. They went, as silent as shadows. Ushoran watched them go. Then he grinned, displaying his mouthful of twisted fangs.

‘You always did have an eye for the pretty ones,’ he said.

‘At least mine stay pretty,’ Neferata said. It was a petty thing to say, but the abortive growl that rippled from Ushoran made it worth it. ‘I suppose that someone told you that Razek visited me?’

‘I needed no one to tell me he would,’ Ushoran said. He snapped at the air. ‘I need the dwarfs, Neferata. Strigos needs them. They have the artifice I need to pull this kingdom of apes up out of the muck.’

‘And you offer them gold in return,’ Neferata said, crossing her arms. ‘Where does that gold come from, I wonder? Have you turned these barbarians into a productive society?’

Ushoran gave a fart of laughter. ‘Productive? Ha!’ He grinned and scratched at the floor with his talons. ‘They were barely scraping by when I found them. In a few generations they would have been no better than the ghouls that haunt the tunnels beneath this place. Inbred cannibals!’

‘And Kadon?’ Neferata prompted.

‘Pfaugh, Kadon,’ Ushoran said, motioning dismissively. ‘He was nothing. Old and weak, like all mortals become. But he had his uses.’

‘He seems to have had something in common with an old friend of ours,’ Neferata said.

Ushoran sat back on his haunches and gazed at her silently for a moment. Then, ‘The dwarf said that, did he?’

‘Not in so many words.’ Neferata stepped past Ushoran and into her chambers. He followed nimbly. ‘Kadon was a necromancer, like W’soran.’

‘Like Nagash,’ Ushoran said.

‘Yes. And how did that come about, hmmm?’

Ushoran went to the dangling man and lifted him. A groan slipped from the man’s lips. Ushoran fastened his lamprey mouth over the unfortunate’s throat and, with a sound like ripping papyrus, began to drink what remained of his blood. Neferata sipped from her goblet, watching him.

When he had finished, he turned to her and said, ‘I don’t know.’

Neferata let the lie pass. Talking to Ushoran was akin to swordplay. The obvious drop of the guard was a likely feint. Instead, she settled for a change of tactics. ‘Where is the gold coming from?’ she asked again.

Ushoran cocked his head. ‘Mourkain has many secrets. Kadon collected much wealth during his tenure as hetman.’ He licked his fangs. ‘We are in the process of re-opening the vaults.’

‘And where did Kadon get this wealth?’ Neferata said. ‘Did he steal it from the dwarfs, Ushoran?’ Even you would not be so foolish, would you, she thought.

‘Here and there,’ Ushoran said. ‘Kadon was a fool and a degenerate, but he was a miser of some distinction. Perhaps he collected some dwarf wealth in his more active years. What does it matter?’

‘It matters quite a bit,’ Neferata said. ‘Show them to me.’

‘What?’ Ushoran said.

‘The vaults, my king, show them to me.’ She emptied her goblet. ‘Razek is curious, Ushoran, as am I.’

‘You think he may try to steal the gold?’ Ushoran said, and she could see by the look in his eyes that he had never even considered such a thing. Oh my cunning lord, your wit has abandoned you as thoroughly as your looks, she thought.

‘No, but I think that if he learns that you’re paying the dwarfs with their own gold he will not be pleased,’ she said. ‘And if that happens, our newborn alliance could quickly become enmity and Mourkain could find itself once more at war with the dawi. Now show me the vaults.’

Ushoran wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Very well. See if you can keep up.’ Then, with a scrape of talons across stone, he was bounding towards the window. Neferata was after him a half-second later. Even as she vaulted out of the window, Ushoran was plummeting downwards through the chill night air.

He struck an outcropping and twisted through the air as if he were swimming. His flesh snapped, ripped and spread with a sound like a rupturing melon, and wings unfurled from his broad back. Black blood, expelled during the transformation, splattered across the rooftops below as a winged shadow sped off. Neferata landed on the outcropping, her eyes wide. Ushoran had learned something during his time in the wilderness after all.

The game of skin-changing was a hard one, and it grew harder the younger and further from the source their kind was. Of Neferata’s get, one in three could shift shape to any appreciable degree, and of those whom her handmaidens brought over, fewer still could manage it. For herself, she had never faced any difficulty with it, and if Ushoran wished to show off, well, two could play at that game.

She leapt down, aiming for the highest, closest roof peak. As she landed, she sank her claws into the flesh of her scalp. Things moved inside her as she ripped the pale flesh from her frame, and freed the sleek, wet, black-furred thing within. Shedding her human skin, she began to pursue Ushoran’s gargoyle shape in the form of one of the panthers which occupied the jungles of Ind.

She bounded across the rooftops of Mourkain, her claws digging gouges in the stone and thatch. Ushoran was fast, but she was faster. She leapt from peak to peak, following the swell of the mountain that Mourkain occupied. Whoever had built the bones of the ancient city had wrought it from the very guts of the mountain, and it was into those depths that Ushoran led her.

The upper reaches of the city were absent of life, save torch-bearing patrols of hard-faced Strigoi, who staunchly kept their eyes averted from the great stone doorway leading into the mountain’s peak. The doors were open, and a foul effluvium emanated from within. Neferata’s lean shape slithered past the guards and darted through the arch. The smell of death enveloped her, even more strongly here than in the pyramid. The ground vibrated with a steady, mechanical pulse. Echoes of steel on stone rang from the rocks.

Something heavy and leathery thumped down in front of her, balancing on wing-limbs. The great bat shrieked and shook itself, trading one brute shape for another. Bone cracked and ruptured and then Ushoran stood before her, grinning widely.

Neferata loped towards him, shedding fur and rising to her feet as she reached him. She combed blood and the matter of change from her hair with her fingers. ‘I see I’m not the only one to learn how to move between shapes in these intervening years,’ she said.

‘We all like to keep ourselves amused,’ Ushoran said, flexing his great hands.

‘Yet you do not teach it to those whom you give the blood-kiss?’

‘And why would he do that? Power is only valuable when it is held by as few hands as possible,’ a thin, hissing voice said. The words tumbled weirdly from the rocks. Something thin and insect-like detached itself from the shadows and stepped forwards. Despite the lack of light, Neferata saw its features clearly. And she didn’t like what she saw. The face was that of a corpse, with blackened, dry flesh pulled tight over sharp bones, and cavernous eye-sockets, one of which was occupied by a milky, unseeing orb. The other was as black as a chip of polished obsidian and it glinted with malign intelligence. A thin strip of colourless hair, bound into a single worm-like lock, hung down from the pointed skull.

‘W’soran,’ she said.

‘Neferata,’ W’soran said, his good eye narrowing to a burning slit.

Neferata gazed at her former councillor with undisguised loathing. ‘The years have not been kind.’ And indeed, they had not. W’soran had become even more cadaverous in the intervening years since she had last seen him. Clad in ragged black, a deep hood over his verminous face, the vampire resembled nothing so much as a mummy which did not have the good grace to decay in silence.

‘Physical appearances were always more your purview, my queen,’ W’soran said. ‘I am concerned with higher matters than hygiene.’

‘So I see,’ Neferata said, repressing a gag. W’soran stank of rot and strange spices. ‘And what higher matters might these be?’

‘You asked about the source of Mourkain’s gold?’ Ushoran said. He extended a claw towards W’soran. ‘There it is.’

‘Well, technically, there it is…’ W’soran said, indicating the stumbling, hooded shapes which had followed him out of the darkness. Neferata hissed as the shapes stepped towards her.

‘Corpses,’ she spat.

‘More than just corpses, my lady,’ W’soran gloated. ‘Bone, muscle, sinew, all that is dead in these mountains is mine to command!’

Ushoran swung his bulbous head towards the other vampire. ‘Even as you are mine,’ he rumbled. W’soran grunted.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said testily. ‘That is our bargain, Ushoran.’

‘King Ushoran,’ Ushoran corrected gently. The hint of menace lurked in those words and the dead reacted to it, even if their master didn’t. They closed about W’soran protectively.

‘I wondered where you’d got to, after Nagashizzar fell,’ Neferata said, breaking the moment. ‘It is a comfort to me that you’re still cowering in dark holes.’ W’soran hissed, his pointed ears flattening against his long skull. Before he could reply, she went on. ‘Show me,’ she said.

W’soran led them deeper into the mountain. Great stairs, crudely carved and decorated with bas-reliefs of skulls, spiralled down into the darkness at the heart of the mountain and vast edifices of unknown purpose and alien beauty hove to out of the gloom. Corpses wove in and out of rough tunnels and smooth corridors, carrying tools.

‘Kadon built all of this?’ Neferata said, awestruck despite herself. Conglomerations of bone and wood braced the tunnels and great stone dips, containing burning lumps of coal and bone, lit their descent. Curtains made from the hair of bats and men draped the landings of the stairway and tattered shrouds hung from the sides of the stairs like tapestries. Braziers exuding the smell of embalming spices were scattered randomly and W’soran inhaled their stink as he passed them.

‘Perhaps,’ Ushoran said. ‘Regardless, he extended it, century upon century. I watched him do it.’

‘You always were good at spying,’ Neferata said. Ushoran’s lip curled, exposing a fang, but he said nothing. The stairs wound down through the mountain, and as they moved deeper, Neferata caught the mildew-stink of ghoul nests and saw dozens of scuttling white simian shapes scaling the rocks to either side of the stairs. The scrabbling ghouls dislodged piles of bone, sending browned skulls rattling down into the depths.

‘Largest nest of the vermin I’ve seen outside of Nagashizzar,’ Ushoran grunted. ‘I feasted on them for decades before I revealed myself to the Strigoi. They hold hunts, sometimes, into the dark places. It used to be a rite of manhood, before I found better use for the creatures.’

‘I believe that they are all that remain of the tribes that the Strigoi once warred with for control of these mountains. Kadon apparently enslaved thousands to build Mourkain, and when he was finished, the survivors were driven into the darkness, where they fed on the blind things swimming in the deep pools and gnawed the marrow from centuries of bones,’ W’soran said. He chuckled. ‘Mortals degenerate so swiftly. I have undertaken a study of it, and the results are—’

‘Unimportant,’ Neferata said.

‘I would beg to differ,’ W’soran said. He threw back his head and uttered an inhuman screech. A moment later, claws clattered across the stone. Neferata, prepared for treachery, was already turning as the ghouls scrambled up over the edge of the landing and bounded towards her. The first ghoul died, its skull shattered and driven into its spine by a blow from her fist. The second was opened like a fish, from groin to gullet. Behind her, something horrible gave a deep, rumbling cough.

Neferata spun and looked up into the dead, black eyes of something that stank of a battlefield. It was larger than the pitiful pale maggot-creatures milling about below, with a bloated musculature and infected, weeping sores through which protruded lengths of filthy yellow bone. It gave a cursory grunt as it stared down at her with a look of glazed ferocity.

Shock hammered through her. ‘What—’

‘Isn’t he lovely?’ W’soran cackled. He glanced at Ushoran, who was watching the confrontation calmly. ‘Watch, Ushoran. Watch and see!’

The creature coughed and then rose up and threw back its head, uttering a soul-chilling howl. The howl was answered by the ghouls that clung to the walls. The corpse-eaters scuttled down like foul white spiders, their eyes gleaming with mingled fear and hunger. A few held bloody lumps of meat torn from the two ghouls she had just dispatched.

The big creature grunted and its claws spread. It licked its broken fangs and eyed her hungrily. It made a slurping sound as it started forwards. Confused, she almost didn’t avoid the first lunge. Normally, ghouls were frightened of her kind, as foxes fled from wolves, but this thing — this horror — seemed almost enthusiastic to come to grips with her.

‘What is the meaning of this, you old monster?’ she snarled.

‘Testing a hypothesis, my queen,’ W’soran chortled, clapping his hands. ‘Best pay attention, Neferata!’

The monster gave a thunderous hog-grunt and swiped at her. She leapt back, landing lightly on the shoulders of a surprised ghoul, and then vaulted over the giant’s next blow. The unfortunate ghoul was bisected. Neferata landed behind the creature and it spun with a roar. It launched itself at her, slobbering grotesquely.

She backhanded it, putting every bit of muscle she had into the blow. The creature staggered, its jaw shattered and possibly its neck as well, but it didn’t stop. Instead, it latched on to her and hooked her forearm with its teeth. She screamed, more in shock than pain, as it savaged her arm and lapped greedily at the blood that poured forth. She yanked her arm free of its vile grip and kicked it away.

‘Look! Look,’ W’soran said, gesturing excitedly. ‘See! I told you, Ushoran.’

‘I see,’ Ushoran said.

The beast scrambled to its feet and, moaning, leapt at Neferata again. She ducked under its extended arms and jumped up swiftly, her palm striking its throat. Before it could worm free of her grip, she ripped its throat out in a welter of gore. It sagged with a sigh, falling to all fours. Neferata tossed the lump of flesh aside and glared at the other flesh-eaters, giving them a snarl. They slunk away, whining.

Neferata turned her glare on the other two vampires. Ushoran shrugged, but W’soran shook his head. ‘Almost, almost,’ he muttered.

Neferata leapt onto him, quicker than either of them could react. Her hands found W’soran’s scrawny throat and she wrenched his bony body into the air and brought it down on the stone with a resounding crack. W’soran squealed and grabbed her face. His strength was surprising and she felt her flesh tear as she jerked him up again and flung him onto the steps hard enough to shatter one. W’soran shook his head and tried to climb to his feet but she was on him before he could, her claws hooked into his scalp.

‘Neferata,’ Ushoran growled.

Neferata hissed, tempted to throw off the masquerade she had only so recently taken up. Instead, she released the other vampire and stood. ‘Was that a test, Ushoran?’ she said.

‘Not the kind you are thinking of, no,’ Ushoran said. W’soran heaved himself up, his eyes incandescent with fury.

‘I should flay your pearly flesh from your treacherous bones,’ he rasped, glaring at Neferata. He clenched his fists, as if contemplating unleashing a spell.

‘But you won’t,’ Ushoran said, interposing himself. ‘We will put aside old grudges.’ He looked at Neferata. ‘There was no treachery here. You were in no danger. W’soran merely wanted to test his newest creation’s abilities.’

‘What was it?’ Neferata said, tentatively touching the already healing bite-mark in her arm.

‘A ghoul,’ W’soran said.

Neferata blinked, surprised. W’soran laughed. ‘Oh yes. I told you that I had been studying them.’ He grinned at her. ‘I have learned much, Neferata. Things that would make even your blood curdle.’ In that moment, Neferata was reminded again of the fear she had once felt when in W’soran’s presence. There was a horrible hunger in his eyes, a hunger that went beyond simple bloodthirst into something else. Nonetheless, she held his gaze until he looked away.

‘If there are no more tests, perhaps I could see the vaults. Where are they?’

‘Scattered all up and down the spine of the mountain,’ Ushoran said, gesturing. ‘I’ve had W’soran’s maggot-addled minions digging them open. Kadon was like a jackal with a bone. He hid his wealth in random places. When he needed a new vault, he merely made one, using the dead to claw it from the rock.’

‘Nagash employed similar techniques in Nagashizzar,’ W’soran said.

‘Which is where I got the idea,’ Ushoran added. W’soran shot him a look, but said nothing. Neferata smirked. The two — the spy and the sorcerer — had never been friends. They were allies of convenience at most, and spiteful allies at that. If that spite were ever unlocked… She filed the thought away for future consideration. There were other levers and locks than just those crafted by the dwarfs in their palaces of stone.

The numbers of corpses increased the lower they went. Stumbling bodies covered in dried flesh walked alongside things that were nothing save bone and scraps of cloth. They came to what could only be an observation platform. Neferata leaned over the stone barrier and peered down into the inner workings of the mine. The dead moved like ants in their thousands, scurrying this way and that. Great machines, the likes of which she had never seen in all her years, ground away at the deep stone, manned by the squat, desiccated shapes of long-dead dwarfs. These latter corpses were even more unnerving than the humans, orcs and beasts that served as labour. Mangy beards, plaited with ancient jewellery, hung from fleshless jaws. Ragged suits of mail dangled from broad bones and strange lights danced in empty eye-sockets.

‘Where by all the devils in the dark did you get those?’ she hissed.

‘Kadon took prisoners as well as gold in his war with the dawi,’ Ushoran said. ‘He forced them to craft him machines of great and fell purpose, down here in the dark.’

‘The mummified corpses of the dwarfs retain a significant amount of muscle memory,’ W’soran mused, eyes guttering like embers.

‘Once we have strengthened the roots of this place, we can begin to build a fortress here. A true fortress, fit for an emperor,’ Ushoran said. ‘It will be a palace of bone and stone, from which I may rule our ever-growing empire.’ He spread his arms as if greeting the jubilant throngs she thought he must be imagining.

Neferata shook her head as W’soran continued to prattle. Idiots, the pair of them. No, worse — Ushoran knew damn well what the end result of this would be. She looked at him and he gave her a hungry smile. ‘You disapprove?’

‘I’m told that the only thing the dwarfs value more than gold is their dead, and you are making a mockery of both. How long do you expect the alliance to last?’ she said.

‘Long enough,’ he said.

‘You intended to irritate Razek earlier, when you greeted him. Why?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? I need to know how practical my new allies really are. What are they prepared to overlook to get this gold?’ Ushoran said. ‘It wasn’t just Kadon’s necromantic inclinations that set Mourkain and the dwarfs at each other’s throats, after all. They declared war on him for a variety of insults.’

‘He offended them,’ Neferata said.

‘He was a fool, as we’ve said.’ Ushoran crossed his arms. ‘I have plans, Neferata. And to accomplish those plans I will need more troops than are currently alive within the boundaries of my kingdom.’

‘You intend to use the dead,’ Neferata said. A sickening sensation had settled in the pit of her stomach, like a bit of sour blood stuck in her craw. ‘Just as we did before,’ she said.

W’soran rubbed his hands together in pleasure. ‘Not just the dead. There is much raw material here,’ he said, and Neferata glanced at the dead brute in understanding.

‘Imagine it,’ Ushoran said. ‘An army of the dead, sweeping over these lands, from this citadel, and making them fit for my coming…’

All is silent. All is perfect, the voice whispered in her head. The charnel legions will march and bring silence to the world. She shook it off, wondering if the others heard it as well. From the expression of fear that passed swiftly across W’soran’s face, she suspected that he had.

‘You think the dwarfs will tolerate that?’ she said.

‘You will see that they do, my Lady of Mysteries,’ Ushoran purred. He was gloating. He thought he had her in a trap of her own making. ‘At least until it is too late for them to do otherwise.’

‘Double the guard,’ Neferata said finally, turning around. ‘No one must see this. No one not of your inner circle,’ she said.

‘Do not worry,’ W’soran said, his fangs flashing. ‘There are more defenders for this place than you have seen.’ He gestured upwards. Neferata looked up and saw vast, loathsome shapes holding tight to the cavernous ceilings. Bats, bigger even than the creatures that she had seen in deep mountain caves, squirmed there. ‘They hunt the wild horses of the plains. I heard stories of them in the Southlands, where it is said they pluck the great flying reptiles from their mountainous perches and feast on them beneath the moon,’ W’soran said, as a man might speak of beloved pets.

Neferata shuddered. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but she knew that such creatures would drain her dry as easily as she had done to so many men and women down the long, thirsty years. ‘So I see. Fine,’ she said, turning to Ushoran. ‘You seem to have things well in hand, Ushoran. I can see now why you allowed an incompetent like Strezyk to serve you.’

‘Strezyk served his purpose,’ Ushoran said, flicking a claw. ‘But I need a more competent left hand for the future.’

‘You’re truly planning a war, then?’ Neferata said.

‘For a variety of reasons,’ Ushoran said.

‘They wear out quickly down here,’ W’soran said. ‘The conditions are not conducive to maintenance, regrettably.’ He looked at Neferata. ‘I need more bodies. Fresh ones.’

‘I’m sure you can always find more,’ Neferata said.

‘When the time comes, an expedition to the Silver Pinnacle will be invaluable,’ W’soran said, rubbing his hands together in evident glee. ‘The dwarfs are masters of the preservative arts and it is said that their crypts go on for miles. I have a theory that it was the dawi who first taught our peoples—’

‘Our peoples are gone,’ Neferata said automatically. The other two vampires looked at her, blank incomprehension on the face of the one, and anger on the face of the other. Ushoran grabbed her arm in his claw.

‘Yes, and whose fault is that?’ he snarled. ‘Nehekhara is dead. Lahmia is dead. But we will build a better Nehekhara, a better Lahmia here!’ He released her and turned. ‘And this ruin and its secrets will help us do it!’

‘Our history is dust, Ushoran. Would you use gold to buy it back?’ Neferata said.

‘Not just gold,’ Ushoran said, his eyes blazing.

‘Then what?’ Neferata said, locking eyes with him. A feeling of anticipation filled her. W’soran laid a hand on Ushoran’s arm and the light in his eyes faded. He shook his head, as if regaining some measure of control. The look of fear was back, pulling at the edges of W’soran’s face like hooks. What was the old jackal scared of? What did he know that she did not?

‘None of your concern, my Lady of Mysteries,’ Ushoran said. Neferata frowned.

‘No, I suppose not. What are my concerns, then?’ she said.

‘Preservation and expansion,’ Ushoran said. ‘I have promised my people an empire worthy of the great barrow-kings of awful memory, or that of the dwarfs at their height. And Ushoran does not break his promises.’

‘No. And neither do I,’ Neferata said.