Her hair crisped and crackled like cloth in a cooking fire and her face split and shrank against her bones as she sank her fangs into Ushoran’s throat. He howled and bucked, pummelling her with burning fists. They thrashed and fought, rolling across the floor. She worried the flesh of his throat, the blood boiling from the heat even as it reached her mouth.
‘Off — get off,’ he yowled, muscles heaving beneath his charred skin as he slapped her aside. She spun through the air and struck the wall, dropping bonelessly to the floor. The flames winked out, leaving them both blackened wrecks. Neferata cracked a crisped eyelid.
More of the obese ghoul-things had come into the chamber while she had been gone, and not just them. Smaller ghouls and the dead men who served W’soran as his guard filled the hall, surrounding her followers.
Stupid. She had been stupid to come here. Ushoran coughed and scrambled to his feet, his charred flesh cracking and sloughing off. He had been burned before and he shook it off with the speed of experience. His claws scraped the floor as he made his way towards her. His previous berserk rage seemed to have left him, and he looked deflated and weary.
‘You see?’ he croaked. ‘Even in death, he denies us our due. The crown is ours by right. With it, we can recreate that which was lost.’
Neferata pushed herself to her feet. The voice of the crown — Nagash’s voice — was back, smashing at her doubts and worries and fears. For an instant, she wondered if this was how others felt when she turned her gaze upon them.
The instant was washed away by visions of a great city, not quite Mourkain or Lahmia, but a blending of both. It was a city of possibilities, a city of could-be and will-be; a city ruled forever by a night-hearted aristocracy, where she would sup on the blood of princes and kings as all the rulers of the world bowed at her sandalled feet, and on her brow, a crown.
Crown and throne, Neferata, it purred. Goddess and queen, Neferata — that is what you will be. All yours…
Did Ushoran hear the same? Did it speak to him in the same soothing tones? Did it make the same promises? Perhaps it had even done so for Kadon.
‘You have done your best to keep me on my throne,’ Ushoran hissed. ‘You have done this even as you have schemed to supplant me in the minds of my subjects. That is why I ask you this now. Help me, Neferata.’ He half-reached for her, with a trembling claw. ‘You want Lahmia back, just as I do, just as Abhorash does, and W’soran.
‘Help me,’ he said again. ‘Help me put the world back to rights, Neferata.’
Take the crown and the throne and the WORLD…
The lessons of the past crumbled in an instant, like the dead flesh which drifted from her burned limbs like black snow. All that was left was desire.
‘As my king commands,’ Neferata said, taking Ushoran’s hand with her own.
TWELVE
Neferata led her handmaidens through the crowded streets of the Corsair City, her robes and cowl pulled close about her, and a veil of hammered gold discs hiding her face from the sun. There was a ship waiting for them in the harbour. It was to take them to Sartosa, across the sea. The streets were full of merchants, mercenaries and refugees, all going in every direction at once. Overhead sea-birds wheeled, croaking, and mangy dogs trotted through the streets.
She stopped as a group of soldiers, clad in silks and bronze, marched past in ragged formation, pennons snapping from their spear-points. It galled Neferata to abandon Araby. Bel Aliad was a smoking ruin, thanks to Arkhan, and the other caliphates reeled under his continued assault. Armies of the dead trod the Spice Road, harrying what forces the caliphates could muster, and Araby was no longer a place for patient schemes and subtle machinations. But that did not mean that such would always be the case.
She caught sight of a flash of red. ‘There she is,’ Naaima murmured a moment later, standing behind her mistress. She gestured towards a shisha house on the other side of the street. Naaima and the others were dressed much as Neferata was, all save Khaled, who wore the armour and full-face helm of a Kontoi. Ragged silk strips hung limply from the spiral point that topped his helm and his cloak was ragged and threadbare. His eyes were haunted behind the chainmail mask that covered his face.
The destruction of Bel Aliad had struck him hard. Every desire and dream that he had nurtured to his breast for the past decade had vanished like a wisp of smoke, leaving him empty of either ambition or energy. Anmar was equally shaken, but had chosen not to emulate her brother’s apathy, instead throwing herself into Neferata’s schemes with admirable abandon. For Khaled, Bel Aliad had been a kingdom to be won. For his sister, however, it had been little more than a cage.
Neferata led her followers towards the shisha house. Men sat on reed mats outside of it, inhaling sweetly scented smoke from a waterpipe. Anmar sat on a similar mat within, wearing a bright crimson robe. She looked up as they entered and laid a hand on the arm of the woman who crouched nervously beside her. The woman was a slave, and pale-skinned like the barbarian tribes who inhabited the far north. ‘My lady,’ Anmar said. ‘The ship is ready whenever we are.’
Neferata nodded and glanced at the slave, who trembled and turned away. The woman stank of fear. Anmar gently stroked her neck, calming her. ‘Ilsa here is a servant of the Dowager Concubine, aren’t you, Ilsa?’ Anmar said softly. The young vampire’s eyes glinted. ‘She has agreed to your offer, mistress, and has sent Ilsa as a gift. The girl speaks the language of Sartosa. The Dowager thought she might translate for us upon our arrival.’
Neferata smiled beneath her veil. Though she was leaving Araby for greener pastures, her influence would remain. The Dowager Concubine was the ruler of the Corsair City in all but name, and with her protection, Neferata’s servants would flourish. When she had re-settled herself, she would re-establish her influence in the caliphates for as long as they stood.
She knelt and reached out, taking the terrified slave-girl’s chin. Neferata smiled and held the girl’s gaze, soothing her and mesmerising her. ‘I’m sure that she will come in handy in one fashion or another,’ she murmured…
The air stank of rot and swamp gas, and scavenger birds spun through the overcast sky. There was no sun in these lands, and there hadn’t been for hundreds of years. In the Desolation of Nagash, it was always grey and dark and foul, a reflection of its creator’s soul. Nagashizzar was a twisted blend of mountain and fortress, and it loomed above the dead land like a monolith to a forgotten god.
It had taken them the better part of a year to reach the shores of the Sour Sea from Mourkain, and Neferata climbed swiftly, ignoring the tiny avalanches her movement set loose. Her patience had worn thin over the months of journeying and she was eager to reach her goal. The others followed at some distance. Ahead of her, Layla moved with inhuman grace, leaping and climbing, marking the safe path. ‘I smell ghouls,’ the girl called back.
‘These mountains are filthy with them,’ Morath said from below. The necromancer climbed slowly and cautiously, lacking the grace of his protectors. ‘There are thousands of warrens in these hills, thanks to Nagash.’
‘I would have thought that they’d have left,’ Rasha said, helping Morath climb. ‘When he died, I mean.’