Master of Death

Chapter Twelve

The City of Lashiek

(Year -1147 Imperial Calendar)

The soldiers of the Dowager Concubine burst through the door of the villa, even as they had burst through the gates outside only minutes before. The battering ram they used fell heavily to the floor as they reached for their weapons. The zombies lurched towards them, groaning. W’soran scooped up the tomes he’d been scribbling in and pressed them to his chest as he whirled about and slapped the life from an extraordinarily quick — and extraordinarily unlucky — soldier in the same motion.

‘Kill them,’ he snapped. ‘Kill them all!’

More zombies lurched past him, their jaws champing mindlessly as they fell upon the invaders. W’soran looked down at the thing on the table — a patchwork cadaver, built from the most perfect of parts, excised from the freshest corpses — and hissed in frustration. Another experiment, ruined.

He was alone in his dwelling, having sent Zoar and his other remaining acolytes out to prepare his new lair for his arrival. Araby was no place for him, not any longer. Not with Arkhan the Black storming the walls of every city within reach. The last thing he wanted was to become bogged down in a conflict with his old foe, especially when there were more important matters to be attended to. There was a ship in the harbour waiting for him, and he had intended to crew it with the dead he now hurled into battle with the invaders.

The servants of the Dowager Concubine had been hunting for him for weeks. The crippled old witch had sought his aid in resurrecting her dying son, in order to maintain her stranglehold on the city. He had done so, and taught her the limited arts she needed to keep the zombie of her firstborn relatively inoffensive-looking. With a puppet corpse-caliph on the throne, she could rule safely. He had thought that would have earned him a few weeks grace at the least, but the wily old crone had turned on him the moment she no longer needed him. He had planned for betrayal, but he was astounded that she had discovered his lair in an abandoned villa in the heart of the port city so quickly.

‘Stand and face justice, butcher,’ the warrior leading the soldiers bellowed. Something in his voice tugged at W’soran’s attentions and he peered at him. He saw a flash of red through the slits in the chainmail mask that covered his face. He did not wear the armour of a common soldier, or even one of the esteemed Royal Harem Guards of Lashiek, but was clad instead in the war panoply of one of the kontoi of Bel Aliad. Ragged silk strips flared from the spiral point that topped his helm as he spun about, cleaving the heads from a trio of zombies with one fluid blow.

Then he was upon W’soran, who jerked to the side as the warrior’s blade hammered down onto the edge of the table, splintering it. His attacker wrenched the blade free and it spun in his hands as he lunged for W’soran again. With a snarl, W’soran grabbed the swordsman’s wrists and they stood for a moment, muscle locked against muscle. That close, W’soran could smell the stink of sour blood and death that marked the kontoi as one of his kind, if an unfamiliar one.

‘What are you?’ W’soran growled. ‘Who are you?’

The kontoi hissed, ‘Neferata sends her regards, butcher.’ As W’soran’s good eye widened, the kontoi kicked him in the belly, flinging him back. He crashed through a bevy of zombies, but regained his feet quickly, avoiding a blow from the kontoi’s blade. W’soran sank his talons into the wood of the floor and ripped a number of boards free. Gripping one, he caught his opponent’s next blow. The heavy blade sank into the wood and W’soran twisted the sword from his enemy’s grip. The kontoi did not hesitate; with a roar, he flung himself at W’soran, smashing him in the face with an armoured forearm.

‘Get off me,’ W’soran spat, catching the next blow on his palm and closing his fingers about the warrior’s fist. With a heave of his shoulder he jerked the vampire into the air and swung him about, smashing him into the wall of his domicile and through it, rupturing the mud-brick easily. The kontoi crashed against the wall of the building opposite and tumbled into the alleyway.

W’soran turned. More soldiers thrust forward, jabbing at him with spears. He hissed and took the obvious path. In a single bound, robes flaring, he leapt the hole and struck the opposite building, clinging to the brick like one of the colourful tree-dwelling frogs of the Southlands. He turned about and craned his neck, giving the horrified soldiers a parting hiss.

Then, quickly, he scuttled for the edge of the roof. He could recreate his experiments elsewhere, under more convivial circumstances. However, even as he cleared the edge of the roof, he heard the scrape of armour on brick. He turned to see the kontoi hauling himself up, eyes flashing with rage.

‘Do you really think you stand a chance against me, dog?’ W’soran cackled, raising his hand. ‘And weaponless and alone at that?’

‘What made you think he was alone, old monster?’

W’soran whirled. Neferata crouched on the roof behind him, surrounded by her handmaidens. She extended the blade she held and smiled cruelly. ‘The Dowager Concubine has asked — monarch to monarch — that I remove you from her demesnes, W’soran. Being as you are still my subject, I could not, in good conscience, refuse her.’

‘I am no subject of yours,’ W’soran hissed. ‘Why do you persecute me?’

‘Why,’ Neferata said, her smile sliding from her marble features. ‘Why? Is the span of your memory so fragile a thing that it cannot bear the weight of what you have done, old monster?’ She slashed the air with her blade. ‘You killed our land! You destroyed everything, alongside Nagash! It is your fault Lahmia fell, it is your fault the Great Land is now nothing more than a sandy tomb, and I shall extract that blood-debt from your wrinkled hide.’

W’soran stood. Rage washed over him. How dare she blame him? How dare she put her failures at his feet? With a snarl, he said, ‘Then by all means… come and try your hand, oh queen of nothing!’

Crookback Mountain

(Year -279 Imperial Calendar)

The assassin managed to avoid W’soran’s search parties for six months. For half a year, the vampire hid in the depths or scaled the peak, avoiding hunters of every shape and description — from Strigoi to wights to the giant bats that lived in the vast caverns far below the mountain. In the end, it was the smallest thing that caused him to meet his end — a common slave.

Unlike W’soran’s brood, the assassin required regular nourishment. And in the mountain, the only nourishment to be had for one of their kind was the slave pens. Mostly, the slaves couldn’t tell one predator from another. Indeed, it wasn’t his identity that proved the assassin’s undoing, but simply that he was a vampire, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Red Eye orcs had been growing restive for months. As more and more guards were diverted to the hunt, the orcs, ever-surly and unfailingly aggressive, took advantage. Revolt in the pens was not unheard of. But it was usually squashed quickly and effectively. But on that day, at that moment, there simply weren’t enough dead men to contain the living. The orcs seized their moment well — as another troop of skeletal guards marched out of the cavern, bound for a search of the southern crags, leaving less than a hundred in place to guard three times that of greenskins.

Crude tools, intended for mining, smashed down on bone, battering the unfeeling sentries from their feet. The overseer, an acolyte named Hruga, sounded the alarm before launching himself into the fray. And the assassin, in the pens to assuage his thirst, was caught up in the green tide as the orcs, seeing only another vampire, attacked him as readily as they attacked everything else.

Such were W’soran’s conclusions after the fact. When he arrived, the pens were in complete disarray. Orcs battled the dead throughout the large cavern. He saw a half-dozen orcs bring down an armoured skeleton, dragging the dead warrior from his feet. The revolt was disorganised, chaotic. It had no centre — it was merely a tantrum of beasts, flinging themselves at their tormentors en masse. The orcs required no lightning rod to incite them to violence, only to organise them. In time, if they won free, a new warlord might arise to lead the Red Eyes to battle.

‘Kill as many of them as it takes to herd the rest back into their pens,’ W’soran growled, flinging the edge of his cloak back. ‘We stop this here, now. Go!’ Melkhior and the other acolytes moved quickly. They knew the danger that faced them as well as W’soran did. There were close to ten thousand orc slaves in the bowels of the mountain. Even a third of that number could threaten their control of the hard-won citadel.

A howling orc burst past the acolytes, swinging a mattock. It was a big brute, covered in scars and blue tattoos. W’soran drew his scimitar and bisected the beast in one smooth motion. His acolytes hesitated. W’soran gestured with the bloody blade. ‘What are you waiting for? Kill them!’

The battle that followed was no sort of battle at all. A dozen sorcerers unleashed the most devastating spells and incantations that they knew within a confined space. Orcs were incinerated, torn apart, shrunken to screaming mummies, or otherwise massacred in minutes. And through it all, W’soran stalked, killing the rebels with gestures and the edge of his blade.

In a way, it was a relief. For six months, frustration had piled upon frustration for him. The body of the assassin he had slain in the initial attack had revealed nothing. The killers were Strigoi, but again, that meant nothing. There were Strigoi scattered to the four cardinal directions, serving four different masters, including himself. Ushoran’s empire had splintered and fragmented like a stool bearing too much weight, just as W’soran had planned. There were no clues to those who had sent them, no subtle signs or indications of their loyalties. They could have even been freebooters — lone vampires looking to take territory for themselves.

But until he knew for certain, he could not plan his next action. Give me facts, I must have facts, he thought, beheading an orc with a casual blow. What if they had been sent by Vorag? What if the Bloodytooth had at last discovered that W’soran was responsible for the death of his woman? Then again, it might have been Neferata — an easy assumption to make, given her recent treacheries. But what had she hoped to gain? Even Neferata was not so arrogant to assume that a bevy of hired blades would be put to him.

But Ushoran might be. Yes, the Lord of Masks had ever assumed that his cunning was greater than that of his enemies. But to send assassins — unless, had they been assassins, or kidnappers? More possibilities crashed through his brain, even as he disembowelled a bellowing orc. Could his own allies have decided to dispense with him? Ullo might consider it, perhaps, or Arpad, certainly… perhaps even one of his own. Suspicion burned in his mind as he caught sight of Melkhior striding through the cavern, flinging death from his hands. Had he finally decided to serve his poor master as he had so many of his fellow acolytes?

As focused on these questions as he was, W’soran almost missed the assassin. The vampire, like all of the others, was engaged in fighting the orcs, but upon sighting W’soran, he moved to complete his mission. W’soran saw it out of the corner of his good eye — saw the assassin, recognised him easily as close as he was thanks to the smell of spoiled blood and bear-fat that seemed to cling to him, and recognised the blade in his hand as it drove for his brainpan. Even W’soran was not quick enough to block or dodge that blade.

Then, with a roar, an orc crashed into the assassin. The blade skidded off W’soran’s shoulder and cheek, drawing blood, and he screamed and spun about. The assassin was on the ground, the orc’s hands on his throat. W’soran, never one to bother with gratitude, beheaded the latter with a contemptuous slash and grabbed the assassin by his bottom jaw, hoisting him into the air.

‘Well, well, well,’ he hissed. The assassin grabbed for him, and W’soran drove his scimitar into the other vampire’s gut, slowly, a bit at a time. ‘Six months I’ve wasted on you, my friend,’ he said, as the cross-guard of the hilt struck the assassin’s belly. ‘Six months of effort and questions.’

Then, with a flick, he withdrew the blade and sent the wounded vampire to the ground. The Strigoi tried to push himself to his feet, but W’soran planted a foot between his shoulder blades and shoved him back down. ‘No, don’t get up. I insist.’ He looked around. The revolt had been put down, and sufficiently bloodily. Once his acolytes had entered the fray, it had only taken a matter of minutes to put things in order. Heaps of smouldering green carcasses covered the floor of the cavern. Only one of his acolytes had faltered, and been dispatched by the maddened orcs, or so Melkhior said. Hruga, as it turned out, which was just as well, as W’soran had intended to punish him severely.

‘He wasn’t paying attention,’ Melkhior said, meeting W’soran’s calculating gaze. Idly, he touched the ruptured flesh that marked the spot where Hruga’s head had once rested. ‘The orc tore it off.’

‘I see that,’ W’soran said, leaving the assassin to his servants. ‘Orcs are strong, but it is odd to find one quite that strong.’

‘They are a varied species. I incinerated it, better safe than sorry,’ Melkhior said, rising to his feet. W’soran smiled.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Better safe than sorry. He was the closest to you in ability amongst the current crop, was he not, poor Hruga? Ah well, no matter.’ He glanced at the wounded assassin, who was now held aloft on the points of several spears kept by his servants. The vampire’s blood ran down the spears to patter across the floor in thick, ropy streams and W’soran reached out a palm to catch some of it. It tasted of grave-mould and rot, and he grimaced.

‘He is a Strigoi,’ Melkhior said, looking at the assassin. ‘Ushoran sent him, obviously. As I have said,’ he said.

‘As you never cease saying,’ W’soran corrected. ‘For six long months, you have said it, and I have said — what was it — ah, better safe than sorry,’ he continued, flinging Melkhior’s words back at him. ‘Yes, that was it. I want to be sure who my enemies are before I begin flailing at shadows, my son. Is there perhaps some other reason you are so eager to convince me of Ushoran’s guilt, eh? Is it a desire to press Strigos, perhaps?’ He glared at his acolyte for a moment before turning about and gesturing for his servants to carry the weakly struggling assassin away.

W’soran favoured the fuming Melkhior with a final glance. He motioned to the cavern and the bodies that littered it. ‘Clean up this sty, my son. That is your duty, after all.’

In the days that followed, W’soran questioned his would-be killer with the same single-minded intensity he had used in the hunt. To make an assumption, he knew, could prove fatal. He was surrounded by enemies both real and potential, and to divert his attention from one to the other wrongly was to court disaster.

For years, he had realised that he was fast approaching the knife-edge of things. The sharp end drew close, bringing with it the culmination of plans and schemes decades in the weaving. Since the fall of the first border-fort, he had spread his shadow further and farther across the mountains. His agents moved through the settlements and fortified villages of Strigos, spending gold freely, buying loyalty or indifference as the situation warranted. Fools like Melkhior thought war was a thing of armies and engagements, when W’soran knew, from experience, that it was more about the ground and time you chose, than the forces you brought. Battles could be won or lost for a matter of space or moments.

‘I will not fight until I am ready,’ he murmured. The assassin had been nailed to an examination table. Heavy iron spikes had been driven through his wrists and ankles and silver chains draped his neck and chest. The touch of that metal on his bare flesh filled the air with a scent reminiscent of burning pork and W’soran sniffed in satisfaction. The assassin was awake, though in tremendous pain. W’soran gestured to the chains, careful not to touch them.

‘Silver,’ he said. ‘I have been aware for many years of its more unfortunate properties in regards to our kind. Oh, we do not require it to kill or maim one another, but it does give one a certain edge, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ He waited for a response. When none appeared to be forthcoming, he sniffed again and snapped his fingers. Several of his crooked scribes lurched forward, bearing his tools and instruments. Carefully, W’soran selected a delicate blade, covered in curving sigils. ‘This belonged to a creature of my limited acquaintance who was as foul a torturer as has ever trod the jewelled sands of this world, despite her ageless beauty.’ He smiled, lost for a moment in a pleasant memory. ‘I have her head somewhere.’

He chuckled and deftly sliced open the assassin’s leg, ignoring the vampire’s scream of agony. ‘But I learned quite a few things from her before our sudden, but inevitable, falling out. From her, I learned of certain men in the Southlands, who can draw the secrets from an enemy simply by devouring them.’ He sliced the assassin’s tendon and stripped it free of its cage of meat. ‘It’s a similar belief to that of the sadly now-extinct Yaghur of the Eastern Marshes, who ritualised the… consumption of human flesh in order to gain the strength of enemies and placate the souls of the slain. Barbarity at its worst, I’m sure you’d agree, but not without its… points of interest, shall we say?’

W’soran held up the tendon and examined it in the torchlight. ‘It was an interesting theory — the consumption of a thing to reveal its secrets. Blood is a potent sorcerous tool, of course, but flesh… in flesh there is a strange sort of magic, I have found. I have never tried it at length of course, being no savage. But, needs must when the devils drive, eh?’ Then, he dropped the quivering shred of muscle into his gaping jaws. Chewing, he watched as the assassin thrashed and snarled. Swallowing, he said, ‘Nothing yet. Well, we have plenty of time.’ He raised the blade, and bent to extract another piece.

Days flowed into weeks. Every day W’soran ate a bit more of his would-be killer, working his way up from soles to crown. As his teeth tore the tough flesh, as his tools flayed the thrashing body, he sucked out every secret contained in the Strigoi’s mind, all save one. One secret, and one alone, the Strigoi took into oblivion with him — the name of whoever had sent him and his fellows to murder W’soran. W’soran was forced to admit that his prisoner might not have known it.

The Strigoi had screamed many names, true, in his torment, but none bore the ring of authenticity. The names of Strigoi nobles and Lahmian courtesans, of village headmen and kings; hundreds of enemies, rather than simply one, and for a brief moment W’soran contemplated conspiracy. It had been a conspiracy that had driven him from Mahrak, and a conspiracy that had ruined him in Mourkain, so why not another?

But things were different now. A conspiracy required order and necessity to function — only one of those things was evident in the incident. All that remained were furtive facts. Someone required his death, and they had acted on it. They would try again, that much he was certain of. But who had made the move? Whose game was this?

Webs were spun within webs, overlapping and interconnected. A complex arrangement of action and reaction, a murderous geometry that caused an ache in his skull — even as it raised more questions. How had the assassins bypassed his defences? How long had they been in his citadel? The last had seemed far too familiar with the hidden places of the mountain to be a new visitant.

W’soran sprawled on his chair — his throne, part of him whispered, for where else would he make his throne room but his laboratory? — and stared unseeing at the ruins of the assassin. He stroked his bloody chin, trying to puzzle out the problem. But for every strand he teased out, two more became knotted. It was Neferata’s way to attack openly if only to drive in the subtle blade, thus, the orcs to distract him and the assassins to kill him. But why use Strigoi, when her handmaidens were more effective killers, unless she intended to throw suspicion elsewhere?

But, she would know. She would know that W’soran would suspect such, and thus would not bother. So, the assassins were sent by someone else. Ushoran, then, but Ushoran was not fool enough to attack so haphazardly. No, Ushoran wouldn’t have sent two assassins, or even twelve. He’d have sent hundreds. Unless he knew that W’soran would suspect Neferata, and was trying to pit his enemies into open battle against one another.

W’soran hissed and dug his claws into his scalp, as if to extract all of his suspicions and toss them aside. He had to know. If he did not know — if he made a move, and it was wrong, the game was lost. When Ullo arrived a week later, W’soran realised that, intentional or not, he had been distracted and that the game had continued without him.

The blunt-headed Strigoi burst into his laboratory, trailed by acolytes and crooked servants, stalking forward in the face of Melkhior’s shouted protests. W’soran had ordered that he not be disturbed, and for once, Melkhior had obeyed him unquestioningly. Ullo brushed him aside in a casual display of strength and tossed something onto the ground at W’soran’s feet.

W’soran’s good eye narrowed as he peered at the thing. He recognised it easily enough — it was Tarhos’s hook, badly cracked, scorched and stained. Given its condition, he doubted that there was much left of its owner. ‘That does not bode well,’ he murmured. His gaze flickered up to Ullo. ‘What happened?’

‘Abhorash happened,’ Ullo snarled. ‘While you’ve been busy chasing shadows, Ushoran has launched a full scale assault on our borders. Every pass and every valley we hold is under siege, sorcerer!’

‘I knew it,’ Melkhior crowed. ‘I knew it. It was a distraction — no, a prelude!’ He pounded the air with his fists. ‘It was Ushoran, master. He has declared open war on us — on Vorag!’

‘Has he? I wonder…’ W’soran stroked his chin and looked down at the hook. Gingerly, he bent and retrieved it, letting it dangle from one long finger. ‘It stinks of magic. One of his false Mortuary Cult members did for the brute, I assume?’

‘Not just any member. Arpad said it was Morath himself,’ Ullo growled.

W’soran stiffened. ‘Well… well, well, well. And where is Arpad now?’

‘Attempting to save our little empire, sorcerer,’ Ullo snapped, crossing his arms. ‘Just as I was — I only returned to bring word and to see if I could dislodge your rump from this musty hole. We must act and soon, or everything we’ve won these past few years will be gone.’

‘And we can’t have that, can we,’ W’soran grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. ‘Fine then, to war once more, I suppose.’

‘Not just war. It is time, master,’ Melkhior said. He turned and began barking orders at the other acolytes. ‘It is time to teach our enemies what fear truly is. Urdek, Gavok, ready our forces! Today, the sons of W’soran march to Mourkain and throw the pretender from his throne. Spiro, send word to the east, and recall Vorag — let him know what is happening and that he must return! Malang, send riders to our envoys to bring their forces home-’

‘Stop,’ W’soran said, raising his hand. The acolytes froze, like mice sighted by a hawk. All save Melkhior, who turned, a look of confusion on his grotesque features.

‘Master, what is it?’

‘I need only two. Urdek, Malang, you will come with me. The rest of you will stay here and oversee the citadel. Melkhior, as ever, is castellan.’ He stepped away from his throne and caressed Melkhior’s cheek. ‘You are more useful here, my son. Guard well my tomes and house, and I will reward you upon my return.’

‘I can serve you better in the field. Urdek and Malang lack my power,’ Melkhior protested. ‘They are nothing — weaklings!’

‘You are more powerful. But you lack their skill,’ W’soran said. ‘You are as much a brute as Tarhos was. You smash when you should slice, and roar when you should retreat. Thus, you will stay here, where your power will more than make up for their absence.’ It was a bald lie. Melkhior had skill aplenty, but what he lacked was subtlety.

His apprentice had been pushing for war for months; longer even, when W’soran stopped to consider it. Once again, he ruminated ruefully on his choice of his servants. Melkhior lacked the temperament for sorcery. He was powerful, true, and a sponge for the stuff of magic. When he honestly reflected on the matter, W’soran suspected that the former nobleman was almost his equal in that regard. But he could not be trusted. Not on the battlefield.

Melkhior opened his mouth to respond and W’soran grabbed his jaw in a painful grip. ‘I’d advise you to make your next words ones of gratitude, my son,’ he murmured.

‘What of Vorag?’ Ullo asked.

‘What about him?’ W’soran asked, not breaking eye contact with Melkhior. ‘This is why he left us here, if you’ll recall. I’d hate for him to think that he could not trust us.’ He released Melkhior and his apprentice stumbled back into his fellows. ‘Where are your fellows, Ullo? Those who are not heroically engaged in the defence of our mighty empire? Have they flown the coop, looking for safer pastures, or are they with us still?’

‘Unless you’ve stuck a knife in their guts, they’re still here,’ Ullo said.

‘Wonderful. Let us go give them a rousing speech, yes? Get them ready for the war they claim to desire, eh?’ He bustled past his acolytes, leading Ullo out of the laboratory. ‘Come, Ullo, come!’

W’soran had lost track of those Strigoi still in the mountain. He left such details up to Melkhior these days. Most, easily bored by what amounted to garrison duty, made up missions for themselves, and led savage raids on what could loosely be termed ‘enemy territory’. The rest, not really interested in conquest or glory so much as in not being under Ushoran’s thumb, lounged about the mountain, getting on his nerves or making idiotic demands of his acolytes when they weren’t engaging in barbaric duels or slipshod intrigue.

Those ones in particular would make excellent shock troops, he thought. When he broached the suggestion as they left the laboratory and descended to the section of the mountain that the Strigoi had made their own, Ullo agreed. They found the bulk of them easily enough. One of the larger caverns had been converted into a crude facsimile of the great arena of Mourkain, where captured beasts and prisoners of war fought for the amusement of the populace. It had been easy enough — the Strigoi weren’t alone in their love of blood sports, for the skaven had had their own fighting pits, and this cavern had once rung with the squeals of excited skaven as they watched rat ogres tear apart slaves or captured trolls.

It rang now with the bellows of bloodthirsty Strigoi, who crouched on the wide, brazier-lined walkway ringing the open pit, watching and wagering on the vicious battle below. One of their own bounded through small hills of offal and decomposing corpses to meet a charging monster. It resembled a wolf, albeit a wolf that had been inflated and stretched over too-long bones and the wrong kind, at that. Matted hair, stiff with blood, sprouted from it, and hunks of raw, pink flesh hung from its frame like some form of grotesque decoration. There was something of the ape in it, and something almost daemonic as well, and the cavern seemed to quake with its howls as it charged to meet the Strigoi. The vampire ducked beneath a wild swipe and slithered around the brute, finding purchase on its back. Fangs flashed, and the wolf-thing screamed chillingly as it reared and clawed for its attacker.

‘Another northern freak,’ Ullo muttered as he led W’soran up onto the viewing platform. ‘More of them drift south every season. I wonder where they found that one.’

W’soran could tell that the wolf-thing stank of dark magic, even from such a distance. A foulness akin to that which clung to the abn-i-khat amulets still dangling from his neck seemed to seep from the beast’s pores. With a roar, it ripped the Strigoi from its back and sent the vampire tumbling across the pit. After shaking itself, it loped forward with an awkward gait, like something not quite sure whether it should be running on two legs or four.

‘There’re whole packs of these things north of the mountains. Every time the witch-moon rises, they boil out of the wastes like locusts. Damn things refuse to die, even if you rip them apart,’ one of the nearby Strigoi said. He was a handsome creature, as such things were judged, with a well-tended scalp lock and cunning features. ‘Took three of us just to knock that one out and drag it back here for a bit of entertainment. We’ve been throwing it slaves, but that got dull.’

W’soran grunted, still watching the battle below. ‘Which one are you?’

‘Tarka of Tzimtzi, at your service, great one,’ the Strigoi said as he made a courtly bow. ‘Newly arrived from the demesnes of Mourkain.’

‘Courtier,’ Ullo spat. ‘Thin-blooded fop.’

‘Ah, Ullo, the others mentioned you were here as well — it’s like no time has passed at all since I last saw you. How did your little military coup go? Not well, I’m guessing.’ Tarka grinned mockingly, and Ullo hunched towards him. W’soran interposed an arm.

‘No better than your attempt to poison Ushoran,’ Ullo said, stepping back and dropping his hand to his sword pommel. ‘I heard he drained the doxy and returned her to you after the fact, with his compliments.’

W’soran watched the byplay, amused. The Court of Mourkain was a snake-pit in more ways than one. Ushoran had used the blood-kiss as a reward for service and had turned hundreds of nobles in his reign, and they in turn had done the same. Assassination had quickly become the preferred method of social and political advancement among the undying aristocracy. Immortality made inheritance a tricky prospect, even among a people for whom duelling was a common solution to a variety of problems.

‘Well, aren’t we a pretty party of traitors, then,’ Tarka said. ‘Unless Vorag sets his primitive fundament on the throne, then, of course we’re heroes.’ His dark eyes found W’soran. ‘And where is Vorag, by the by? I’ve been here three years without seeing either hide or hair of the Bloodytooth.’

‘I’d consider that three years well spent,’ W’soran said. ‘But the time has come to earn your keep — aye, you and the rest of these fools.’ He gestured to the other Strigoi, who were now watching them, as opposed to the fight below.

‘Oh?’ Tarka asked. ‘And just how will we be doing that? And, who are you to suggest it? You are no more master here than I am,’ he continued, smiling slightly. The other Strigoi drew closer. Down below, the vampire fighting the wolf-thing had regained his perch on the creature’s back and his hands fastened on its jaws, prying them open. With a heave of mighty shoulders, the Strigoi snapped the brute’s neck.

W’soran cocked his head. ‘I? I am the ruler of the citadel. I am your host, and I’d say you owe me a debt of hospitality, if not loyalty.’

‘A debt of hospitality, you say?’ Tarka asked, turning slightly to include the other Strigoi. ‘Ruler of this citadel, you say? I came here to serve the Bloodytooth, not some withered old bat! I know you, W’soran. They say you fled from Mourkain with your tail between your legs, looking for sanctuary in Vorag’s coterie.’

W’soran laughed softly. Ullo had stepped back, his gaze calculating. The Strigoi had become complacent in their sanctuary. That was partly his fault, he knew. He was used to the unquestioning obedience of the dead, and had not considered that the Strigoi might, in their own, unsubtle way, have plans of their own. Those who desired battle were out defending his empire already; all that was left here were those who desired to be on the winning side, but did not necessarily desire to contribute to that victory.

Thin-blooded fops, cowards and conspirators, these were to be his generals. W’soran exposed his fangs, wondering if, in some odd way, this had been Ushoran’s plan all along. Ushoran had, in one of his thousand disguises, fomented rebellions and conspiracies aplenty in Lahmia, and then crushed them. Perhaps this was something similar — a centuries-long purging of untrustworthy elements, now that their use had ended. That alone proved Ushoran as the most deadly of those who pitted themselves against him. Neferata would butcher hundreds in a moment of spite, but she was incapable of the pragmatic bleeding that Mourkain had required. But Ushoran thought like W’soran. He saw his followers for what they were — tools. Tools to be discarded or re-forged as circumstances dictated.

He dismissed the thought a moment later. Even if it were true, there was no help for it now. One worked with what one had. He met Tarka’s gaze and inclined his head. ‘As you say, but Vorag left this citadel in my command. And I have built it into the centre of a growing empire, an empire of which you are subjects, an empire I am calling upon you to defend.’

‘Under your command,’ another Strigoi barked.

‘Who better?’ W’soran asked.

‘Anyone,’ Tarka said bluntly. ‘You are no warrior — you are barely a castellan. We see more of your bat-faced servant than we do of you, W’soran. You hide in your stinking lair, or scuttle about on the fringes, clinging to Ullo’s skirts. You are no Strigoi.’ Tarka spat, and a gobbet of bloody spittle struck the hem of W’soran’s robes. ‘You are barely a man. Even that witch, Neferata, is more of a warrior than you.’

‘Then why did you not go to Silver Pinnacle to serve her?’ W’soran asked. He smiled thinly. ‘I’ll tell you why — she wouldn’t have you. Neferata has no use for creatures like you. But I do.’

‘Maybe we have none for you,’ Tarka said. His smile was wolfish. The other Strigoi were watching intently. The one from the arena had joined them, covered in the wolf-thing’s foul-smelling blood. Belatedly, W’soran noticed the necklace of fangs dangling from Tarka’s neck, and a flutter of amusement passed through him.

He had been expecting this, or something like it, for some time. Vorag’s authority had grown distant and thin, and not every Strigoi possessed Ullo’s remarkable strain of competent self-interest. Vampires had short memories when it came to authority. Unless it was obvious and undeniable, they inevitably attempted to wriggle out from under it.

‘Oh, I’m sure you could find some use for my poor self. Old W’soran knows a few tricks,’ he said. He glanced at the crowd of Strigoi. There were more than a dozen of them. He didn’t need all of them, certainly not Tarka. ‘For instance…’

Tarka lunged, as quickly as a shadow. W’soran completed his surreptitious gesture regardless, and caught the Strigoi’s throat with his free hand. The Strigoi’s eyes widened as he realised just how strong the withered vampire was. In the arena pit, the mounds and heaps of dead flesh began to quiver. W’soran turned and Tarka’s feet scraped the palisade helplessly as he found himself dangling over the edge of the pit, W’soran’s claws hooked into the meat of his throat.

Below him, the dead had risen. They circled beneath the helpless Tarka like jackals on the hunt. He thrashed in W’soran’s grip, but couldn’t break it. W’soran ignored his flailing and focused on the other Strigoi. ‘Yes, I know a few tricks. And those tricks are all that keep you safe in these lands. Our enemies circle us, like the dead below circle this fool, waiting to rip him lip to loin. You think to challenge me for leadership? I welcome your challenges. If one of you would prefer to take the burden of leadership from my poor, tired shoulders, let him step forward. If one of you has tricks comparable to mine, if one of you can wring loyalty from the great majority of the charnel field, by all means, step forward.’ He shook Tarka for emphasis. With his good eye, W’soran glared at the muttering Strigoi. ‘Well? Who’s it going to be, my fine, brave lords of Mourkain, hmm? Who steps forward, eh? Just Tarka, then — perhaps he speaks for you all, eh?’ His gaze slowly slid to the red features of Tarka, who hammered at W’soran’s forearm with no more effect than a feather beating against an iron bar.

‘Did you think me weak, Tarka? Did you think to add poor, old W’soran’s fangs to your collection? Is that what you thought?’ he snarled, shaking the Strigoi. ‘In my youth, I was something of a teacher — a humble tutor to aristocrats and the puling whelps of kings. You are certainly older, but definitely no wiser than those scheming brats, so I will teach you as I taught them. Lesson the first… I am to you as you are to those rotting carcasses below. I am the first and in me is the strength of ages. I have killed nations and drained the lifeblood of empires, while you are nothing more than fleas in the hide of history. Lesson the second… never forget lesson the first, or I shall dispense with you as easily… as… this.’ So saying, W’soran crushed Tarka’s throat, rendering it a gory, gaping ruin. Gagging and choking, the Strigoi slid from his grip and crashed to the arena floor.

The dead, as one, peered up at their master. W’soran gestured, as a man might to his faithful hounds, and they fell upon the wounded Strigoi. Tarka fought as best he could with broken bones and gaping throat, but when the wolf-thing fell upon him, its horrid corpse sparking with unnatural vitality, the fight ended abruptly as Tarka was scattered across the arena.

W’soran retracted his bloody arm and examined it. ‘Today’s lesson is ended. We march at dusk, my lords. See that you are ready, or we shall have another lesson.’