Josh Reynolds - Neferata

‘My lady, we’ve rounded them all up at last,’ Khaled said.

‘Speak of the beast,’ she murmured. Then, louder, she said, ‘How many?’

‘Six, my lady,’ Anmar said, flopping down on one of the great cushions which lay scattered across the floor of the chamber. ‘Not a fighter in the bunch. And one step above the great apes of Ind as far as brains go,’ she added with a snort.

‘Such sharp fangs, my little leopard,’ Neferata said, rising from her own cushions. ‘Intelligence and fighting ability can be taught. And if not, well…’

Khaled smiled. ‘Well indeed, my lady. Strezyk had good taste as far as looks went.’

Neferata frowned. ‘Careful, Khaled, your more unpleasant proclivities are showing. It is not a look which suits you.’ She gestured imperiously. ‘Bring them in.’

‘What are you planning, if not to stock our larder?’ Naaima said.

‘I am planning to see that others stock it for us,’ Neferata said. ‘We need friends. Strezyk took the pick of the booty when it came to certain prisoners of war, something which won him no allies in Ushoran’s little newborn snake-pit. We will not make the same mistake.’

Khaled brought the women in. They huddled together, stinking of fear. Barely-healed bite marks covered their arms and thighs and Neferata repressed a hiss of disgust. Strezyk had been a cruel master, that much was certain. And while cruelty had its place, practised on the helpless it was mere sadism, and as such worthless and, worst of all, pointless. For Neferata, cruelty was the tip of the blade you twisted to force action. To practise it on wretches like these was gross indulgence. Once again she reflected that Strezyk was no loss.

The women were as beautiful as Khaled had said. They were former barbarian princesses, the daughters, young wives and cousins of conquered chieftains and warlords. But the haughtiness had been beaten out of them, and at least one had been bled almost white. Broken in body and mind, Ushoran probably expected her to drain them and throw them away.

But she had other plans.

She took the chin of a red-headed beauty and turned her face to the light. ‘Where are Stregga and Rasha?’ Neferata said as she examined the woman’s broad features.

‘Stregga is where you sent her, courting that brute Vorag,’ Naaima said. ‘And Rasha is—’

‘Rasha is investigating this edifice,’ Khaled said smoothly. Naaima glared at him, and he smiled. ‘As you requested, my lady,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ Neferata said absently. On the ride to Mourkain, Vorag had displayed undue attention to the blonde Sartosan. Stregga had been only too happy to indulge those attentions. And Rasha, born raider that she was, was as cunning and stealthy as any beast of the desert. If anyone could sneak about without alerting the spies that Ushoran had undoubtedly already placed around her chambers, it was her.

She looked the red-head in the eyes. ‘What is your name?’ she said. The woman looked at her blankly. Neferata squeezed her cheeks gently, with only the softest of pressures. There was a flash in the woman’s eyes, a buried spark of resistance. Neferata smiled. ‘Never mind, we have time to get acquainted. Naaima, see that they are bathed and properly clothed and fed. Strezyk appears to have been a firm believer in keeping them hungry.’ She released the woman and watched as Naaima led the girls out, considering. ‘Khaled, I wish you to get acquainted to those men in Ushoran’s personal guard. They’re made up of the firstborn sons of the agals — the Strigoi nobles. Find out whether their loyalties lie to Ushoran, the throne or their families.’

‘Of course, it would be my pleasure, but why?’ Khaled said.

‘You’re questioning me again, my Kontoi. Is that wise, do you think?’ she said without turning around.

‘I merely wish to understand your grand strategy, milady,’ Khaled said.

Neferata smiled briefly. ‘My strategy, dear Khaled, is to learn all that I can in order to ensure that our new kingdom survives longer than the last.’

The door thumped. Neferata turned. ‘Ah. And here comes another source of information now. Stay here. I will see him alone.’

She left her private rooms and entered the audience chamber. She strode swiftly to the door and threw it open, startling the two guards Ushoran had posted in the corridor. They eyed her cautiously, having been part of her predecessor’s guard. They had seen what she had done to Strezyk, and she could smell their fear.

‘Milady, Thane Silverfoot—’

‘Thane Silverfoot wants a drink. D’you fancy a drink, Neferata of Lahmia?’ Razek said, stepping past her into the room. He looked at the barren chamber and snorted. ‘Do you even have anything to drink?’

Amused, Neferata nodded to the guards and closed the door. One of them would doubtless be reporting to Ushoran. She turned to face the dwarf. ‘I believe there’s something in Strezyk’s cabinets, yes.’ She moved to the cabinets and plucked out a clay jug that sloshed promisingly. It had dust on it. She handed it to Razek, who pulled the cork with his teeth and took a swig. He made a face as he swallowed it.

‘Terrible,’ he said.

‘Yes, I expect so. Strezyk seems to have been deplorably lacking in taste.’

‘I heard he had an accident,’ Razek said gruffly. He looked uncomfortable. Neferata knew that the dwarf was still feeling put out. Messages had been sent to Silver Pinnacle, via methods known only to the dwarf himself, letting King Borri know that his son yet lived. There were a number of dwarf traders and not a few itinerant miners in the city and Neferata suspected that one of them, or even several, had been bullied into taking word to Karaz Bryn.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And you’ve taken his place.’

‘Also yes,’ she said. Razek looked at her. After a moment, he nodded.

‘Good,’ he said simply.

Neferata smiled. ‘Gold,’ she corrected. ‘That is what this is about, I understand.’

Razek stared at the flames. ‘My people are interested in opening proper trade with Mourkain,’ he said.

‘Is it your people,’ she asked, ‘or your king?’

‘Not just him,’ he said.

‘You don’t approve,’ she said.

‘I have a longer memory, even when it comes to gold. We used to trade with Mourkain many years ago as you manlings judge things. Back when Kadon was running the works,’ Razek said. He shuddered slightly. ‘Brrr, he was a bad one, old Kadon. Sour, like a bad patch of tunnel, and touched in the head.’ He tapped his head for emphasis.

Intrigued, Neferata let him talk. Ushoran had been stubbornly close-mouthed when it came to his coup; at least she assumed that it had been a coup. He had always been a plotter, her Lord of Masks. It was just too bad that his plots always unravelled in the end.

‘They said he found something down deep in the dark, and that it spoke to him and broke him,’ Razek said in a faraway voice, as if reciting a children’s bedtime story. ‘Dwarfs know about that sort of thing. We know better than any man or elf what gnaws at the roots of the mountains and what coils in the dark beneath the world.’ He tipped the jug and the contents dribbled into his beard. ‘He used the dead,’ Razek spat. ‘That’s what did it. He forced the dead to serve him. That’s a power no mortal should have, let alone a creature like mad, bad Kadon.’

Neferata sat silently, digesting this new fact. She thought again of the black sun, and the voice like needles on bone. She suspected that it had spoken to Abhorash, but Ushoran? If he wasn’t the cause, what was? The stones beneath her feet seemed to tremble like the flank of a purring cat. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation. ‘But things are different now,’ she said, prodding gently.