‘I’m sorry,’ she said, forcing herself to utter the words. She needed Abhorash. Whether or not he was a willing ally, she knew she needed him. She needed his strength, his staunchness. She needed her champion.
Abhorash hesitated, and then nodded brusquely. In his eyes, she saw that he knew exactly what it was that had driven her into such frenzy. Abhorash had seen it himself. ‘Mourkain,’ he said, pointing.
She turned, half fearing that the black sun would take her into its mad embrace once more, or that the foul mass she had glimpsed would lunge for her. Instead, she saw the land rise sharply into a crown of broken hills, through which slithered a dark and fierce river. And there, at the top, was Mourkain. The city rose up like tombstones over the hills and peaks and she knew that it was far larger than it appeared. It was not quite the abomination she had seen moments earlier, but she knew that it wasn’t far removed.
‘It is beautiful, is it not?’ Vorag said.
‘Yes,’ Neferata said, not knowing whether she was telling the truth.
FOUR
The desert tribesmen ululated wildly as they shook their weapons at the night sky. The victory had been swift and decisive. The Nehekharan pickets had never known what hit them, so swiftly had the tribes struck. Out here, on the edge of the Great Desert, the warriors of Nehekhara had grown lax and soft and they had paid for their inattentiveness with their lives. In contrast, the tribesmen were savages, clinging precariously to a harsh and unforgiving existence that had made them hard and fierce.
Neferata reclined on a pile of cushions, smiling benignly as she sipped from a cup of blood. She was clad in iron armour, bloodstained now. Naaima crouched nearby, speaking softly to Rasha. Neferata considered eavesdropping then dismissed the idea. There was no cause to suspect that Naaima was doing anything more than teaching her newest handmaiden some detail or other about her new existence. Neferata examined the young woman, smiling slightly. Rasha, a chieftain’s daughter, had taken well to immortality. She had ripped out her own father’s throat and butchered her brothers for Neferata. Women, even chieftains’ daughters, were not treated well in the desert.
With Rasha’s tribe beneath her thumb, she had swiftly brought others to heel through similar methods — chieftains and warlords torn to pieces by daughters and wives in nightly orgies of long-repressed violence. She glanced around at her new handmaidens; twenty in all, they reclined or supped on the bodies of captives taken in the raid. The garrison soldiers had been strung upside down from posts within the tent and their blood dripped into clay basins. As she watched, a woman lapped at the blood like a cat, her hair trailing through it. What the tribesmen thought of the peculiarities of their new mistress, she had never bothered to inquire.
Several thousand of the nomads flocked to her night-black banners now. Some hailed her as the personification of the Desert Snake, others called her Mother Night. It was all the same to Neferata. As long as they served, they could call her what they liked.
She looked over at the body of the young outpost warden from whom she had been supping. He was cold now, and blank-eyed. She clucked her tongue; she had taught Alcadizzar better than that, she had thought. The nomads of the Great Desert rose and fell like the tides, and their loyalties with them. It had been some time since some of their number had given shelter to the fugitive Rasetran prince, and the impositions he had made since — curtailing their traditions of raid and plunder — had put many of them in a hostile mood.
Instead of bolstering the outposts, however, he had begun to pull his troops into Nehekhara proper. Neferata took a sip of still-warm blood. Something was going on. She could smell it on the wind… There was a carrion stink that put her in mind of old friends. There were rumours flying through the camps, of dead men walking and plague and pox and old evils newly returned. Black smoke had been seen belching from the mountains on the shores of the Sour Sea.
She closed her eyes, considering. Something had turned Alcadizzar’s eyes away to the north. Now was the time to attack. Now was—
The shriek was a monstrous thing, loud enough to flatten men and tents. The wind whipped and curled, hurling sand and sparks into the air. Something massive crossed through the sky above the tent, titan wings beating thunderously.
Neferata leaped to her feet, tossing aside her cup and its dregs of blood and snatching up her sword. She drew the tulwar and tossed aside the goat-hide sheath as she bounded out of her tent, followed closely by Naaima and Rasha and her other handmaidens.
The shrieking thing landed in the centre of the camp. It was as large as three horses and eyes like campfires blazed at the scattering tribesmen as a great spear-blade nose quivered and needle-studded jaws gaped hungrily. Sharp ears unfurled from the square head and its wings were tattered sails. It shrieked again, and several of Neferata’s handmaidens clapped their hands to their ears.
On the back of the bat-creature, a familiar figure sat, jerking the reins to control his obscene mount. Tattered robes did little to conceal the cadaverous nature of the rider and as his sunken features turned towards her Neferata snarled in recognition.
‘W’soran!’ she growled, loping towards her old high priest, murder in her eyes. She leapt up onto one of the great beast’s wings as it slid across the ground near her and scrambled towards its back, her sword at the ready.
‘I bring you greetings, mighty queen,’ W’soran cackled. ‘I bring you greetings from your lord and master, Nagash!’
Neferata sprang towards W’soran, her sword licking out towards his scrawny neck as the name of the Great Necromancer struck a painful chord in her. Black lightning crackled from his talon-like fingers, catching her in mid-leap and flinging her back into her tent, which collapsed atop her. As she floundered free, she saw her handmaidens engaging the laughing maniac and his pet monster. One of her servants was slapped from the air by one of the beast’s talons, her marble form disintegrating from the force of the impact. Neferata screamed and tore her way free of the tent.
As she made to return to the fray, something heavy struck her and flung her forwards. She rolled to her feet and slashed out with her sword, striking only shadows. ‘He sensed you, Neferata,’ Ushoran hissed, crouching some feet away. His bulky form was huddled beneath a thick robe, but she recognised her former advisor well enough. ‘Nagash desires that you join him.’
‘Join, or serve?’ Neferata replied.
‘One is much the same as the other,’ Ushoran said, shrugging.
‘You throw over your loyalties quickly, Lord of Masks,’ Neferata said.
Ushoran growled, and his talons flexed. ‘Lahmia is dead, Neferata. It is ruined and blasted and gone. Just like all of Nehekhara will be, when Nagash gets finished with it!’
Neferata lunged. Ushoran sprang backwards, narrowly avoiding her strike. ‘Nehekhara and Lahmia are mine! Not Nagash’s and not Alcadizzar’s!’
‘You cannot defy his will, Neferata,’ Ushoran said, his claws skittering across her armour. ‘He will have you, one way or another!’