No, she would rule softly and gently, from behind curtains and viziers. She would stand behind all of the thrones of the world and their politics and wars would be her parlour games, enacted for her amusement down the long, unending corridor of years. It would be a great game, that.
Bones clattered beneath her feet. She looked down. Piles of brown and yellow lay heaped in the corners, as if some great force had swept them aside. Rotted armour and rusting weapons lay amongst the piles, enough to outfit an army. Dust and cobwebs and the filth of ages provided a pathetic barrow for the dead. She glanced back at the throne.
‘You failed, old skull. But Neferata will not,’ she said, baring her fangs. She blinked. The veins of abn-i-khat had seemed to flicker in response to her words, and she felt a chill curl around her spine. Momentarily unnerved, she said, ‘Morath, have you found anything useful in that rubbish?’
‘I… don’t know,’ he said. He sat on the dais steps, a crumbling book in his hands. The glow from the hand had dimmed and it lay near his foot, discarded. He thumbed through the crumbling pages cautiously. ‘They’ve just sat here for centuries…’ he said, as if offended by the thought. ‘Why wouldn’t the scavengers have taken them?’
‘Maybe they tried,’ Neferata said, gesturing to the crumbling bodies. ‘Have you found what we need, or not?’ Before he could reply, the sound of swift footsteps on the stone echoed through the chamber. ‘Prepare yourself, necromancer,’ she said, loosening her sword in its sheath. She could smell the rat-musk now and she thought that she caught a glimpse of red eyes in the darkness of one of the holes which marred the wall.
‘There are so many of them — so much knowledge,’ Morath almost moaned, flicking through crumbling pages, his eyes widened as if to drink in the faded scrawling that covered each page. ‘What we could do with all of this—’
Neferata glanced at him. ‘I care nothing for Nagash’s scribbling, Morath. Find the right damn one before it’s too late—’
With a squealing cry, more than a dozen rat-things burst from one of the close tunnels, carrying short stabbing spears and rough wooden shields. They charged towards Neferata and she moved to meet them. Morath shot to his feet and spat harsh, croaking syllables, and a curling spike of dark, blistering energy carved a swathe of destruction through the horde. Neferata was hot on its heels and her sword smashed down through a shield and into the furry body cowering beneath it.
In moments the surviving rats were scampering back the way they had come. Neferata spun as Rasha and Layla entered the throne room through the doors, covered in blood, some of it their own. ‘They’re regrouping,’ Rasha said. ‘And more are coming besides. Morath was right — we’ve walked into a nest of the foul beasts.’
‘More than a nest,’ Morath said, looking longingly at the books and scrolls scattered across the dais. ‘If W’soran was telling the truth, there’s a damn city down there and enough troops to keep us busy until the world ends.’ He snatched one of the books up and flipped through it. ‘We could kill thousands and they’d still keep coming.’ He clutched the crumbling book to his chest.
‘Then it is best if we take our leave,’ Neferata said. ‘Is that what we came for?’ She gestured to the book in his hands with her sword.
He hesitated. His eyes darted to the other tomes scattered about. ‘I–I think so.’ It was plain that he wanted to claim otherwise. Morath had a hunger for knowledge that rivalled the dwarfs’ love of gold.
‘Do you think, or do you know?’ Neferata snarled, taking a step towards him. ‘I have no time for games, Morath. There’s an army breathing down our neck and we won’t have a second chance at this!’
Morath hugged the book more tightly, but he met her gaze. His posture stiffened. ‘This is the one,’ he said more harshly.
‘We won’t make it ten yards past those doors, mistress,’ Rasha said bluntly. ‘I can hear them out there. They’re all around us. We were under siege the moment we left the ghoul warrens!’
Neferata hissed in exasperation. So close and yet to be deterred by vermin was as complete an insult as she could conceive. Had this been Ushoran’s hope all along? That she would fall here and her bones join those–
‘Ha!’ Neferata pointed to the bones that lined the hall. ‘Here. Here is where we shall find our reinforcements.’
‘It will take all of the strength I have left,’ Morath said, not quite protesting. He was speaking the truth, she knew. He was paler than normal and looked shrunken, somehow. He cradled the mouldering tome to his chest as if it were a child.
‘Do it,’ Neferata demanded. ‘Do it or be damned, Morath. If you want my protection, then make yourself worthy of it.’
Morath nodded, grim-faced. Neferata felt something like a caress across her heart, and then Morath raised his hands and black energies, painful to look upon, curled from his fingers. A strange smell filled the air, which would have choked the living.
To Neferata, however, it smelled like the sweetest of wines. The winds of darkness clamoured to be used, pressing themselves upon the world through Morath’s ritualistic gestures. Neferata gulped down a greedy breath, drinking in the stray magics with instinctive abandon. They invigorated her more than even the headiest swallow of blood. Was this what W’soran felt as he employed his necromantic magics? She glanced to the side. It was obvious that the others were feeling it as well. Even as the living felt repulsed by the magic of the grave, the dead were seemingly drawn to it.
Morath spoke and his voice, while not deep, burned and echoed amongst the stones of the hall. Brown bones which had soaked in the grime of centuries burst upwards on tattered feet and clawed for the sky. Long-dead things lurched into the light of his spell, shedding dirt and immobility like water. Moans that were more a memory of sound than sound itself settled heavily on the air.
Neferata stepped forwards. Ancient weapons rattled as the dead raised them in salute. A hundred skulls, covered in veils of filth, returned her gaze with empty ones of their own. The floor and walls shook and shuddered as a cloud of cold, wet air and mist seeped from the pores of the stones. The mist swept about the feet of the dead and rose up before them like a wave, disgorging the emaciated shapes of warriors in ancient bronze armour, whose eyes glowed with a sinister light.
Morath stepped past them, face drawn and haggard. ‘The Yaghur served Nagash for centuries. As they will now serve you, Lady Neferata,’ he said. He slumped on the dais, his limbs twitching as if they ached. ‘I’ve wrenched the dead from the guts of this place. Hopefully it will be enough.’
‘It tires you,’ Neferata said, looking at him.
‘Of course it tires me,’ Morath said. ‘I am wrenching the dead out of their graves. It is like a game of tug-of-war, between them and me. If I set a foot wrong or make the wrong gesture, I’ll join them in the darkness.’
‘W’soran seems to have none of your difficulties,’ Neferata said. She could hear the skittering of the ratkin in their holes. They were regrouping and regaining their courage in the sanctuary the darkness provided. She wondered at their hesitation. Were they that cowardly, or was it perhaps that they felt the raw essence of evil that lingered here?
‘Your kind,’ Morath spat the word, ‘have no difficulties channelling the magic required to pull the dead from their sleep. Or so W’soran says, at any rate.’
‘You don’t believe him?’ Neferata said, raising her sword. She glanced at Rasha, who nodded. Shapes moved in the darkness outside the doors to the throne room.