Neferata

Prologue

Bones rubbed softly together within tattered scraps of armour as the skeletal sentries shifted aside their spears. Eyes burning with witch-fire, Arkhan the Black examined them for a moment, and then stepped through the archway, one fleshless hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

The place had belonged to the dwarfs once, and it showed in the design of the thing, though modifications had been made since. The majestic sturdiness of dwarf stone was consumed by the sumptuous decadence of lost Nehekhara. Draperies of Cathayan silk softened the stern arches of the corridor, as tile murals from Sartosa obscured the stones of the ceiling and fumes of exotic incense spilled into the halls from quiet alcoves. The statues of long-forgotten gods from dead lands squeezed into the spaces once reserved for the mighty stone forms of Valaya, Grimnir and Grungni, their marble eyes watching Arkhan’s progress.

Dead men hovered along the path, toiling ceaselessly at labours that were beneath Arkhan’s notice. Somewhere behind him, the vast doors of the hold crashed shut, causing the smooth rock of the path beneath his feet to tremble. From the outside, one would not even know that this place existed, unless one was familiar with the rune-markings of its former masters. In days long gone, the dwarfs had boasted of their dominion of these mountains and the gates would have been not only visible, but impressively so. But the dwarfs were no longer the masters here, and the hold’s new mistress had a predilection for secrecy.

She had purged the routes and signs leading to this place in the intervening centuries since she had taken the throne. None knew the secret ways and means of Silver Pinnacle now, save those whom the hold’s dark queen wished to know.

How Nagash had known was up for debate, given the circumstances. Gone were the days of shared counsel between Arkhan and his master. Dim though it was, the single guttering spark of humanity that remained to Arkhan — that made him who he was — served only to illuminate the rift between him and what Nagash had become in his time in the deep dark. Arkhan, fleshless as he was and driven by dark magic, was terrified of the nightmare thing that his lord had returned as: all brass bone and balefire, the Great Necromancer was a force unto himself, self-wrought and self-empowered, owing nothing to anyone or anything.

Nagash had sent him here to acquire the fealty of this place’s mistress and her vassals, a task Arkhan was uniquely suited for, considering the connection between them. Or so Nagash had claimed. In truth, Arkhan thought it was because Nagash did not trust him. Not that he had any reason to. Arkhan had served Nagash well and faithfully for a stretch of time longer than his mortal life and had been rewarded with annihilation time and again.

In the thousand years since Nagash had last walked the land, Arkhan had tasted again the joys of independence. He chafed now beneath Nagash’s thumb, and he spun plots to free himself; all had failed, of course, or had never been implemented. Nagash was too strong and too in need of a lieutenant to let Arkhan return to Nehekhara and his conquests in the land of bones and dust.

Until such time as Nagash freed him, was destroyed, or was victorious, Arkhan the Black would serve him, however unwillingly.

The great stone gallery with its walls adorned by more murals and colourful tapestries from the lands of the Bretonni extended far ahead of him. It was lit by specially constructed hooded braziers whose light set the shadows to dancing on the walls in shapes pleasing to the inhabitants.

Dark, low shapes prowled in the dark corners and alcoves, mewling softly amongst themselves in the debased tongue of the flesh-eaters. Above, clinging to the high ceiling like a living carpet of hairy flesh, were thousands of bats who watched Arkhan’s progress and added their chittering to the background murmur of the ghouls’ mewling. Arkhan ignored them all and moved steadily towards the raised dais at the end of the gallery.

The broad-boned skeletons of the citadel’s former inhabitants waited for him there. They were arrayed in ranks before the dais, armoured and armed as they had been in life. Arkhan was not intimidated, but even so, the skeletal dwarfs gave him pause. His fingers tightened on the hilt of the black blade sheathed on his hip.

Perhaps it was a trap. He would not have put it past her. She would not bow her head to any creature, not even Nagash. The thought was a surprisingly pleasant one, and if he had still possessed the capacity to do so, Arkhan would have smiled. Instead, he simply stopped before the dais and its fearsome guardians and waited for the mistress of the mountain to receive him. As he waited, he studied the dais.

It sat at the apex of a set of circular steps that ringed around it, and was surmounted by great curtains of soft, dark silk that flowed down from somewhere far above like a black waterfall. Soft light lit the curtains from within, and the smell of strange spices and incense hung heavy on the air, hiding the stink of old blood that clung to the stones of the gallery. There was a cat as black as the shadows that clustered about the chamber lying on the steps, its yellow gaze fixed on him. As he waited, it rose languidly to its feet and trotted up the stairs and through the dark curtains.

There was a whisper of steel on the air and then a colony of dark shapes dropped from the bat-crowded ceiling of the gallery. Arkhan swept his sword from its sheath just in time to meet the downward stroke of a slim, curved blade. The liche stepped back, armour creaking, as more blades dug for his skull. He parried each blow with inhuman speed, ancient reflexes honed in countless battles carrying him through the tornado of steel that had descended on him.

Whispering voices reached him, sliding innocuously through the gallery inbetween the riotous meeting of swords. An audience of red-eyed courtiers had gathered in the balconies above, and they watched with ill-concealed delight as the liche defended himself.

He had expected a dozen perhaps or maybe twice that, at most. But there were hundreds of pale, hungry shapes looking down on him. Mostly women, but some men, scattered here and there. They were of all the races of man and none, bound as they were to a new, darker bloodline. Here was the army Nagash had sent him for: not the skeletons or the crouched, snivelling carrion-eaters, but this plague of nocturnal nobility.

They were as far removed from the vampires he remembered as he was from the gambler he had been centuries ago. Hundreds of red-eyed, blood-swilling predators, to be set upon the human who dared call himself emperor and who dared keep that which was Nagash’s from him.

His attackers were red-eyed shadows, clad in dark jerkins and hoods. They moved with a fluid ease that part of him fondly recalled and envied. It was the ease of immortality, the suppleness that came with being separate from the world’s ebb and flow and time’s anchor. They danced around him like leaves in a strong wind, bending and twisting bonelessly around his half-hearted blows.

They made precise, lethal movements that would have killed a lesser being in a matter of moments. The gallery rang to the sound of steel on steel and agitated bats filled the air as Arkhan’s mind raced. Was this indeed a trap? Or was it something more subtle… A test, or perhaps a game?

Arkhan caught a descending blade in his hand. Magically strengthened bone contracted and the sword blade cracked and shattered like an icicle. Its wielder blinked stupidly for a moment before leaping backwards to avoid Arkhan’s own sword. The black blade hissed out, narrowly missing the vampire’s midsection.

Another blade hammered down onto his shoulder. Arkhan barely registered the blow. The weapons were nothing more than common steel, and little danger to one as steeped in the raw essence of dark magic as he. They might as well have been hitting him with flowers. There was no need to even call upon his magics, save in the interest of cutting to the chase.

It was a game, then. He knew better than most how boredom crept up unawares and inexorably on the long-lived. Had it been her idea? Perhaps… She had been spiteful in life. There was no telling how much worse death had made her.

After all, look what it had done to him.

He stepped back, easily avoiding a blow that would have taken his head off, and lowered his sword. The vampires advanced cautiously. Arkhan flung out his free hand. Eldritch energies crackled, first in his palm and then beginning to crawl across his bony fingers. The vampires stopped.

‘Enough,’ a voice said. The curtains were swept aside by pale arms as a yellow-eyed woman looked down at Arkhan for a moment before indicating that he should approach. Arkhan closed his fingers and let his hand drop to his side. The vampires slunk aside and he stepped past them, sheathing his sword as he went.

‘You are either courageous or foolhardy to attack a representative of the Great Necromancer,’ he said, letting his words carry. ‘Nagash does not forgive such insults.’ The whispering and chittering of the things in the shadows and on the balconies ceased at the mention of the name. The skeletal guard stepped aside in a rattle of bones and armour.

Arkhan started up the steps. The woman stepped aside, her robes swishing softly. She eyed him narrowly, the dark veins that ran beneath her pale flesh pulsing. Her lips curled, revealing delicate fangs. ‘She has been expecting you,’ she said softly.

‘Has she?’ Arkhan said. Looking at her, he recognised her dimly. One of the first of her mistress’s get, turned back in those distant, happy days before Nehekhara had gone to dust. He didn’t recall her name, only that she was a Cathayan, and had been a concubine, once.

‘Or a messenger, at least,’ the vampire said, shrugging.

‘Should I be insulted?’ Arkhan said.

‘I thought you were dead,’ a new voice said, from the throne at the centre of the dais, and the words held a familiar teasing note.

Arkhan bowed his head to the figure on the throne. ‘I was,’ he said, his voice issuing from between his bony jaws like a spurt of smoke. The words hung on the air for a moment, echoing oddly.

‘Yes… Several times over, I imagine,’ the Queen of the Silver Pinnacle said, leaning forwards on her throne as he stepped inside. She gestured lazily to the woman. ‘Leave us, Naaima.’

The vampire nodded and stepped past the curtains, letting them fall closed behind her. Arkhan looked at the creature that reclined regally in the throne, and the dim ghosts of ancient emotion stirred sluggishly. ‘Neferata…’ he said. She was still as beautiful as he recalled, though that beauty no longer evoked the same desire. Even if it had, he no longer possessed the means to express it.

As pale and as cold as marble, her aristocratic features had sharpened from their former softness into something altogether more predatory. If Arkhan had been alive, he would have felt terror mingled with his desire, for Neferata of Lahmia was ruin in the flesh. Eyes like polished onyx stared unblinking at him and her great mass of night-black hair had been bound in thick serpentine plaits that coiled about her shoulders and across her décolletage. Despite the chill of the tomb, she wore nothing save a thin silk dress akin to the type she had worn when he had first seen her, so long ago. Golden armlets clung to her arms, and there were fine rings on her fingers and visible on her toes within her sandals; a belt of the finest wrought gold hugged her waist.

‘Arkhan,’ Neferata said. She gazed at him coolly, studying his emaciated shape with detachment. ‘You are less than you once were.’

‘As are you,’ Arkhan said, gesturing to the stone floor. Neferata’s eyes became slits, but Arkhan continued, ‘You have gone from ruling a nation to hiding in a tomb.’

‘Hardly,’ Neferata countered, leaning back. ‘It is a fortress, dear Arkhan. My fortress.’ She smiled. ‘But it could be a tomb, depending on what message you came here to deliver.’

There was no sign as to whether the threat had registered save for the briefest flicker of Arkhan’s eerie gaze. ‘Nagash sends his regards,’ he said.

Neferata paused. There was no trace of the fear that the Great Necromancer’s name had once engendered in the one-time Queen of Lahmia. Instead there was simply wariness. ‘I was not aware that Nagash walked among us once more,’ she said.

‘I have lost my flesh, Neferata, not my senses,’ Arkhan grated, his sword hilt creaking in his grip. ‘You knew the day he awoke, as I did.’

‘Maybe not the day,’ she said, smiling thinly. ‘Have you rejoined him?’

It was Arkhan’s turn to hesitate. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Why?’ There was no malice in the question, only simple curiosity.

‘Why did you set your dogs on me?’ he countered.

She chuckled. ‘To see what was left of you,’ she said. ‘To see whether you were merely a husk animated by Nagash’s will, or something more…’

‘I should have thought Bel Aliad would have taught you better,’ Arkhan said.

‘Oceans of time, dear Arkhan, have passed over that moment,’ Neferata said, idly examining her fingers. ‘Things — people — change, even those like ourselves who are, by definition, changeless.’

‘So I see.’

‘What does Nagash want?’ she said.

‘What he always wants: servants.’ Arkhan said it flatly. There would be no lying to Neferata. She was too cunning for that and Arkhan had little reason to hedge. ‘Vampire servants,’ he added.

‘I would have thought his experiences with poor, unfortunate W’soran would have taught him better than that,’ she said.

Arkhan made a grinding sound. W’soran had been a greedy fool, and Arkhan had paid for the vampire’s overconfidence more than once during the war against Alcadizzar. ‘I tried to find the sorcerer. He stole something of Nagash’s and fled in the last days of Nagashizzar.’

‘He’s dead,’ Neferata said bluntly, ‘and good riddance to him, the fool.’ She sighed and met Arkhan’s eerie gaze unflinchingly. ‘Servants, is it?’

He inclined his head. She snorted. ‘And I am supposed to — what? — throw open my gates and yield my divine right to his majesty, the King of Bones?’

‘If not, I am to take it by force,’ Arkhan said.

‘Do you think you could?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Neferata rose smoothly from her throne and pressed her hands to his chest. Her fingers rose, tracing the contours of his skull with delicate caresses. ‘Oh, my sweet, savage Arkhan… You would, wouldn’t you?’

‘As swiftly and as surely as I destroyed Bel Aliad.’

She made a pouting expression and sniffed. ‘Yes. And wasn’t that a terrible waste.’

‘For you,’ he said.

‘For both of us,’ she said.

‘The dead can never rule the living, Neferata. They can only destroy them,’ Arkhan said, in a tone of one who has no wish to re-hash an old argument. She snorted and a slip of laughter escaped her.

‘Yes, I know,’ she said.

Arkhan paused. ‘You have changed, then…’ he said. Bony fingertips brushed a strand of dark hair out of her face. Her own hand came up instantly and swatted his aside. The fingers of her other hand pressed deep into the metal of his ancient cuirass and suddenly he was flying backwards, out through the curtains and down the stairs.

Arkhan picked himself up slowly as Neferata stepped through the curtains, his sword in her hand. Automatically he glanced at his now-empty sheath and then up as she sprang towards him, aiming a blow at his skull. Arkhan twisted desperately, avoiding the strike. The sword crashed into the stone, cracking it. Neferata whipped the blade up and around with a skill he had not known that she possessed, nearly taking his head off as he bent back beneath the blow.

He backed away, raising his hands. She hissed, exposing inch-long fangs. Her form blurred as she moved, faster than the human eye could see. Fortunately, Arkhan was no longer human. He slapped aside the blade and wrapped his fingers around her throat. She dropped his sword and suddenly a panther was raking its hind-claws across his torso. Surprised, he released the creature. Neferata resumed her shape and her blow caught him in the chest, rocking him back.

Magic crackled on the tips of his fingers. Nagash had taught him those first halting, clumsy spells but in the centuries since, Arkhan had become a sorcerer in his own right. Death and the loss of flesh had done remarkable things for his concentration. Neferata hesitated, a smile curling at the edges of her lips.

Snarls and shrieks suddenly echoed from every corner of the gallery. Vampires flung themselves at the liche. Pale fists and hooked talons tore at him and Arkhan spat hoarse syllables as he unleashed his magics. A vampire screeched as it was engulfed in black fire and reduced to a charred skeleton. He swept his arms out, creating a wall of flame between him and them, driving the creatures back in a spitting, hissing mass. But not all of the creatures retreated; through the flames came a black, feline shape, yellow-eyed and snarling.

The cat smashed into him, its claws raking his mouldy clothes and scraping bone. As he grabbed for it, its shape expanded, lengthening and stretching with a sound like butchery in reverse, until the vampire called Naaima was gripping his skull between two deceptively powerful palms. He felt his skull flex in her grip and prepared to flense the meat from her bones with a word. But, as suddenly as she had attacked, the vampire was again a cat, which eeled out of his clutches and padded away. Arkhan spun. Neferata lay sprawled on the steps, watching him as the cat climbed into her arms.

‘Impressive,’ Neferata said, stroking the cat. She quirked an eyebrow mockingly as he stalked towards her. A dim flicker of anger pulsed through him, but quickly faded. He relaxed, letting the threads of magic he had bound to him unravel.

‘Was that another test of my worth?’ he grated, gesturing to his sword where it lay on the floor. It shuddered and shot towards his hand. He sheathed it with a flourish. Neferata clapped.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was a reminder of your place.’

Arkhan said nothing, waiting for her to continue. She sniffed. ‘This is my place of power, liche. Not yours and certainly not Nagash’s. He is old and brittle and not what he once was—’

‘He is more,’ Arkhan interjected.

Neferata paused. ‘Perhaps… The fact remains, he holds no power here.’

‘He will not accept that,’ Arkhan said, looming over her. Neferata gazed up at him, unconcerned.

‘He will have to,’ she said, rising, still holding the cat. ‘Neferata serves no man, whether he’s dead or alive.’

‘He will command you, as he commands me,’ Arkhan said, his eyes blazing. ‘You will have no choice…’

‘I have defied Nagash’s will before,’ Neferata said. ‘I have defied and defeated his servants and I will do so again to hold on to what is mine.’

Arkhan stood silently, watching her. Then, in a whisper, he said, ‘Tell me…’