‘No!’ Khaled barked.
‘Quiet, Arabyan,’ Zandor snapped. ‘Why shouldn’t we? If the witch wishes to leave the glory to us while she sneaks in the back door, let her. A few tricks might help her distract the dwarfs for more than a few moments before they take her traitorous head.’
‘Your support is noted and appreciated, Zandor,’ Neferata said. ‘It will take time, of course.’ She looked at Khaled. ‘But I’m sure we can find something to occupy our days and weeks, no?’
He made a face and looked at the immense inner doors that sealed the rest of the hold away from the entry-chamber. The Upper Deep was theirs, but getting into the lower levels would be difficult. More than difficult, in fact; near impossible, even with the forces at their disposal, unless something tipped the balance in their favour.
Neferata inclined her head as Khaled glared at her. ‘What would you suggest?’ he grated.
‘Come, come, my Kontoi, surely you have taken part in sieges before?’ Neferata said. ‘There are things which must be done.’
His eyes lit up with understanding. ‘As ever, my queen, you are correct,’ he said. He grimaced a moment later as he realised what he had said. Neferata gave no sign that she had heard.
In the days that followed, the dead fell easily into old routines formed in life. Roving patrols of skeletal horsemen rode through the claws of the weather that gripped the mountains, their ancient bronze armour green with verdigris and sheathed in ice. Corpse-wolves loped through the scrub forests of the mountain slopes, hunting for the merest whiff of warm blood. And the ranks of the numberless dead swelled day by day as Morath pulled them from their crude graves.
Neferata had made her camp out of the grip of the blizzard that continued to batter the region, within the entrance hall. A pavilion tent had been erected by fleshless hands and filled with luxuries, brought specifically for that purpose from Mourkain. Even if she was being forced to play general for Ushoran, there was no reason she couldn’t do so in comfort. She studied the old scrolls while lying on a pile of cushions, handing them to her handmaidens when she had finished. Of them all, only Naaima seemed to have grasped the art of the magics as well as she, but the others would learn in time.
Morath stood in the centre of the tent, warming his hands over a brazier. He wore heavy furs over his slender form and dark circles weighted down his eyes. The tent flap was opened and Redzik, one of the Strigoi, stepped in, snow falling from him in clumps. ‘We’ve found it,’ he said.
Neferata tossed aside a scroll. ‘Where is it?’
‘Just where you said,’ Redzik said. ‘The wolves sniffed it out. The river goes right into the mountain’s guts.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s iced over, though. Probably why there’s no guard on it. No telling how deep the ice runs…’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Neferata said, stretching. ‘It’s time.’ She looked at Morath. ‘You know what to do?’
‘Knowing and accomplishing are two different things,’ the necromancer spat. He shivered. Neferata reached out and gently stroked his cheek with the edge of her palm. Morath shuddered. She smiled gently.
‘I have faith, my sweet Morath, as should you. After all, does not a god stand at our side?’ Like the rest of them, he had stood frozen as Ushoran became something terrible. Morath’s prediction had come true, and he had done nothing to prevent it.
‘I’m… I am sorry,’ he croaked, after a short silence. He looked away.
‘Men are always sorry, after the fact,’ Neferata said, running her fingers across his shoulders. ‘But it is not you from whom I will accept an apology. You’re a dog, Morath, and a dog can be forgiven biting at the whim of its master.’
He jerked as if she had struck him. ‘Mourkain—’ he began hoarsely.
‘Mourkain would have been a paradise,’ she said, turning to follow Redzik out of the tent. Naaima and her handmaidens paced after her, checking their weapons and armour.
‘You do not have to do this,’ Anmar said as Neferata approached. ‘Naaima could go, or even Layla,’ she suggested, taking Neferata’s hand.
Neferata was silent for a moment. Vampires could not feel regret; or, rather, none she had known had ever displayed such. But what was writ on Anmar’s face was as close to it as she thought that they could get.
‘And what would I do, little leopard?’ Neferata said. ‘Would you have me sit and sulk in my tent? Or would you rather me sit and ponder the intricacies of your brother’s betrayal?’
The remark was spiteful, and Anmar took it as such. She pulled back. Neferata hesitated, wanting to reassure her, but knowing that there was no purpose to such a gesture. She was going to kill Khaled and Anmar too, if she interfered. She would kill all of the traitors and fools. Instead, she said, ‘You have made your choice, little leopard. You have chosen your brother over me.’
‘Could I do otherwise?’
‘Only you can say,’ Neferata said, turning away. ‘Blood calls to blood and like to like. I made a mistake with your brother. I should have left him dead on the floor of his secret room, and taken only you. But even then, I knew I could not separate you. It seems nothing will.’
She strode away, noting Khaled approaching as she did so. She wondered whether he had heard. From his expression, she guessed that he had. A momentary surge of satisfaction lifted her mood as she stepped outside. The wind and cold enveloped her and she welcomed it.
Besides her handmaidens, a troop of skeletal horsemen and spearmen, their bones coated in glistening ice, accompanied her. A token force and one she intended to leave near the river. There would be plenty of dead within the hold for her to manipulate, if she were right.
The dwarfs entombed their dead, as W’soran’s studies of Mourkain’s depths had shown. There were generations upon generations, going back to the first inhabitants of the hold, all waiting for her gentle summons to march to war against their kin. They would catch the dawi in a pincer, between two walls of bone and metal.
When they reached the river, she found that it had indeed frozen solid, just as Redzik said. Neferata stood on a bluff overlooking the river, Naaima and Iona beside her. They had left the others below, out of sight, with the dead. Neferata sniffed the wind. Several of the corpse-wolves were prowling nearby, their gait awkward and uneven.
‘We’ll set the dead to shattering the river. Once we have a hole, we’ll go down,’ she said. ‘We will awaken the dead of the hold even as the Strigoi batter their way in. If need be, we will of course open the doors for them again. Eventually.’
‘Are you certain that this is wise?’ Naaima said.
She was eyeing the river distrustfully, but Neferata knew she wasn’t actually talking about that. ‘No,’ Neferata said. ‘But we face two enemies here, not one. And we cannot strike until they are both properly weakened.’ She looked askance at Naaima. ‘Or would you have me remain a slave?’
‘I would have you live,’ Naaima said, not looking at her.
Neferata stared at her for a moment longer. Then she looked at Iona. ‘Gather my handmaidens. We will descend as soon as possible.’
‘What about Anmar?’ Naaima said suddenly.
‘She has chosen to remain by her brother’s side. I have chosen to allow her to do so.’
Naaima said nothing, but Neferata caught the soft susurrus of her thoughts nonetheless. She knew exactly what her handmaiden was thinking. She glanced at the other woman. ‘You think that was a mistake?’
‘I think that even though we are immortal, that even though we are no longer human, something yet remains for us of mortality and humanity. And for some of us more than others…’ Naaima brushed a loose strand of frost-stiffened hair out of her face. ‘Khaled’s betrayal hurt us all.’