‘Strezyk serves me admirably in that capacity,’ Ushoran said slowly, gesturing to Strezyk. The vampire had got to his feet and reclaimed his mace. His face was flushed purple and his fangs jutted from his mouth like tusks. He sweated rage. Neferata glanced at him dismissively.
‘Strezyk is a fool. He insulted the dwarf and nearly cost you a potential ally. He allowed me to get within a hair’s breadth of you. He is foolish and vain and stupid, Ushoran. That is why you picked him. You never could stomach subordinates who were smarter than you.’
‘And you could?’ Ushoran said, glowering.
‘I chose you, didn’t I?’ she said smoothly. The flattery did not go unnoticed. Ushoran stiffened, his eyes alight with speculation. She could almost hear the thoughts rattling through his head: Can I trust her? Is this some gambit? Why? Why?
‘I am tired of the wilderness, Ushoran. I would rule again, even if it is at your side,’ she said, bowing her head. ‘Make me your Lady of Mysteries, if Masks are no longer to your liking.’
Ushoran laughed. The sound started as a low purr that burst out as a rumbling growl. ‘Strezyk might have something to say about that, eh, Strezyk?’
Strezyk’s mace caught her in the hip. Bone crunched and she nearly fell. Abhorash cried out, but Ushoran lunged to his feet and grabbed him. Neferata snapped upright and slapped Strezyk off his feet. The Strigoi slid across the stone floor and scattered nobles who hopped awkwardly aside. He struck a column and lay for a moment, panting. Neferata tested her hip and then faced him, her features lit with a predatory fury.
Strezyk rose, mace in hand, his own face twisting into something bestial. With a growl, he charged forwards, his weapon clasped in both hands, its head trailing behind him. Neferata lunged to meet him. She slid, ducking under his wild swing. Her claws dug into his belly, releasing a spray of sour black fluid. He screamed and gave her a glancing blow on the side of her head. Stunned, she awkwardly dodged his next blow.
His mace thudded down again, cracking stone. Strezyk was strong and fast, like all vampires. But as she had noted with Vorag, he had no idea of his true potential. He saw power only in terms of his human frame. Neferata had evolved beyond such preconceptions.
She had been the first of them. And she was stronger than any pale shadow that had come after. The mace dropped towards her head again and she caught it, her fingers squeezing the stone head so hard it cracked.
Caught up as he was in a berserk fury, he jerked at the weapon and kicked at her belly, trying to dislodge her. She slapped a hand to his leg and swung him into the air, hurling him into the dais hard enough to shatter one of the steps. Strezyk rose with a screech, his head flattening and expanding as hair burst from his pores and his clothes tore. Humps of muscle rippled across his widening frame and the mace looked like a toy in his bulging claw as he came at her again, howling.
She sprang past him, her claws leaving red trails across his hide. He spun, but she was faster. Like a cyclone of teeth and claws, she leapt and circled him, cutting him to pieces bit by bit. Soon he was gasping and the floor of the hall was slick with his blood. His fangs gnashed and he stumbled. In contrast, Neferata felt nothing — neither exhaustion nor even the slightest hint of fatigue. She circled him like some great cat of the veldt waiting for its chosen prey to give in, lie down, and accept death.
No vampire, even one as pathetic as Strezyk, would do that, of course. Persistence was built into them. When the last living breath fled, a will to persist like that possessed by no mortal creature filled them in its place. They could not surrender to death, not willingly.
Neferata stopped. Strezyk’s eyes had gone half-mad and feral and the grave-stink rolled off him in waves. There was something tainted in Ushoran’s blood, some feral weakness it seemed, an inclination to the bestial.
‘Come then,’ she purred, crooking a finger, ‘one last time, Strezyk.’
The mace looped out, and her body became as mist, swirling and coiling up his arm as he gaped in shock. The mist seeped into his flattened, triangular nose and open fang-filled mouth and red eyes and hair-choked pores. Strezyk dropped his weapon and clawed at himself as he staggered back. He opened great canyons in his own flesh, trying to dig her out, but to no avail. Strange bulges began to form on his body, like flowers seeking the sun, and he groaned. His tongue and eyes protruded grotesquely as his body began to shake. He made a strangled sound and then gave an agonised scream as he abruptly burst in a shower of gore. Men and women screamed and there was a stampede to the doors as the ruin of Strezyk tottered a few steps and fell at the foot of the dais.
Silence fell on the hall as Neferata stepped out of the ruins of the former major-domo, picking her way delicately over the lumps of quivering meat and bone that littered the steps. Blood drenched her, turning her pale skin the colour of rust. She gazed up at Ushoran and licked her lips. She held his gaze for a moment. Then she dropped to one knee, spread her arms and bowed her head.
‘My king,’ she said, ‘how may I serve you?’
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.