‘You might have forgotten, what with all that time spent among the barbarians,’ Gashnag added, glaring at her. Both Strigoi looked ready for a fight. They were no longer the parasitic courtiers they had been so long ago. Now they were warriors, or carried themselves as such. She wondered, in the moment before she hurled herself at them, whether Abhorash had had a hand in that.
Zandor reacted first, half drawing his sword before her talons opened his face to the bone. He screamed and reeled, clutching at his face even as she caught Gashnag’s sword in her hand. Blood dripped down the blade as the tableau held for several seconds. Then she tore the blade from the startled Strigoi’s hand and backhanded him into the great bronze doors of the throne room. The doors burst inwards, carried wide by Gashnag’s weight. He slid across the floor, his armour clattering, and Neferata followed him, carrying his sword.
‘My Lady of Mysteries, to what do we owe the pleasure?’ Ushoran said. He looked human and ordinary on the throne. Anmar sat at his feet. The chamber was empty save for the hooded figures which stood near the great throne like a silent court, and the bulky forms of several monstrous ghouls. She was reminded of the creature that W’soran had unleashed on her in the vaults and she hissed. He had made more of them, obviously, and he had got better at whatever dark process had been involved in their creation. These creatures were bigger than the other, and were not quite so patchwork. They gazed at her with dim hunger and she remembered how the other had attached itself, remora-like, to her arm.
She tore her eyes from the monster to the steps of Ushoran’s throne where Anmar sat, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Neferata gazed at the girl for a moment before she addressed Ushoran. ‘I come to reclaim what is mine,’ Neferata said, gesturing to Anmar. See how he sits in your chair, the voice hissed. She ignored it.
‘If you had been a few moments slower getting here you would have had nothing to reclaim,’ Ushoran said idly. ‘I intended to give her to W’soran’s pets there. What do you think of them, hmmm? Much improved from the last time you saw one. They are quite striking and vicious as well. They have a taste for the blood of our kind, I’m told. Isn’t that so, W’soran?’
One of the hooded figures standing near the throne tossed back his hood to reveal W’soran’s desiccated features. ‘Oh yes, as I’m sure Neferata realises by now.’
Neferata ignored him. ‘Why have you taken my handmaiden, Ushoran?’ she demanded.
‘You mean to say that your little spies haven’t told you yet?’ Ushoran said, gesturing to Naaima as he pushed himself up from the throne. He spread his arms. ‘Someone tried to kill me,’ he said. He gestured to Anmar. ‘This creature of yours was seen in their company.’
‘By whom?’ Neferata said.
Ushoran’s eyes flickered aside, towards W’soran. ‘A little bat,’ he said.
Neferata snorted. ‘Of course. Why else would he have sent his beasts, rather than alerting his king?’
‘You would know all about that, would you?’ W’soran spat. ‘What secrets do you keep, Queen of Mysteries?’
Neferata ignored that. ‘Anmar,’ she said. ‘Come here.’
‘She stays, Neferata,’ Ushoran said mildly. ‘She must be punished.’
‘Then I will punish her,’ Neferata said, extending her hand towards her handmaiden. ‘Come here.’ Anmar rose hesitantly. When Ushoran made no move to stop her, she bolted towards Neferata. Neferata held her for a moment, examining her. ‘Your brother has much to answer for,’ she murmured, stroking the girl’s hair.
‘He saved me,’ Anmar hissed. ‘W’soran’s monsters would have killed me, my lady! They’d have left me in the street like the others!’ She grabbed Neferata’s hand. ‘It was the only way, my lady,’ she said urgently.
Neferata hesitated. Then, anger overrode the brief spark of regret. ‘He should have saved all of you,’ she hissed. She stepped past Anmar and glared at Ushoran. ‘Anmar and the others were following a conspirator, as you commanded. That is why she was in his presence. My people work at crooked angles, Ushoran, and must occasionally play friend to our — to your foes.’
Ushoran cast a lazy glance at W’soran, who trembled with rage. ‘I told you,’ Ushoran murmured. He looked back at Neferata. ‘This is the throne room of Ancient Kadon himself, you know. And it was here that I killed him. Impressive, is it not?’
‘Why should I be impressed because you managed to throttle some elderly madman?’ Neferata asked.
‘Elderly, yes, but mad? No,’ W’soran said. ‘Kadon’s knowledge was greater even than mine.’
‘Many things are greater than you, W’soran,’ Neferata said pointedly.
Ushoran laughed. ‘Such venom you spit, my queen. Such raw red rage you display, and for what? What have we done to elicit it?’
‘The night is short, Ushoran, and I lack the patience to go into the many perfidies that you and that sour old corpse-thing by your side have inflicted upon me and mine. Tell me why I should not take this latest insult as the last?’
‘Because you’re curious,’ Ushoran said, grinning. He tapped his head. ‘I am as well. Does it speak to you in the quiet moments, Neferata? I’d wager it does.’
She hesitated, struck by the sudden certainty that there was a deeper game here. She had intended to use this breach to bully Ushoran into revealing his secrets at a later time. But perhaps Ushoran was seizing an opportunity of his own. Tread carefully, she thought to herself.
‘Ahhhhh,’ Ushoran breathed, nodding knowingly at her silence. He glanced smugly at W’soran. ‘I told you that it speaks to her and Abhorash as well, I’d wager. And you said that they lacked the spark or wit to hear it.’
‘Hear what?’ Neferata snarled, taking a step forwards. She knew the answer already, but she wanted to see the limits of the web Ushoran was spinning. Dust falls from the eyes of heroes and kings, and the dead are stirring in their tombs, the voice whispered. They will rise and march and thrust the world into a silent, serene shape. The Corpse Geometries will bend and slide into formation for the dead, binding the fires at the poles and snuffing the stars themselves.
‘That,’ Ushoran said, as the shriek of the nails-on-bone voice faded in her head. ‘I thought I was privileged at first, to hear it. Like a lover’s croon. But it’s not,’ he said, the humour fading from his voice. ‘It’s the command of a master to a servant.’
W’soran bridled, grimacing. ‘It’s an echo, Ushoran… I’ve told you—’
Ushoran moved so fast that Neferata barely caught it. He backhanded W’soran, catapulting the thin vampire off his feet and to the floor in a heap. W’soran’s servants closed ranks, and the air was suddenly alive with the acrid odour of fell magics. Ushoran paid them no mind, instead focusing his attention on Neferata. ‘It’s like acid, isn’t it? Etching its way into your thoughts. You never met him, of course. That’s why you don’t recognise it. But I did, and when I heard it…’ He shook his head. He made a face. ‘W’soran was his favourite. Like a child with a new toy. He barely noticed me, damaged as I was. He left me to his beasts.’ His fingers curled into fists and his human seeming wavered. ‘But it was I who answered his call first! I who came to him! Me!’
‘Which is why we’re still here, of course,’ W’soran said, as his acolytes helped him to his feet. Ushoran tensed. ‘All this time after the fact, we’re still here, trapped in this primitive shadow of Lahmia, forced to grub in the dirt like peasants.’ W’soran wiped a bit of blood from his lipless mouth. His eyes swivelled to Neferata. There was more than just disdain there. There was also a warning. Ushoran wasn’t the only one spinning a web. ‘Because the first to come wasn’t strong enough to do what needed doing,’ he added, still looking at Neferata.