Josh Reynolds - Neferata

‘I said be quiet!’ Khaled shrieked. He wrenched the lid open and glared at her. She could see herself reflected in his eyes, a mummified thing, covered with crawling insects, withered talons clutching the splintered shaft of wood that jutted from her heart. He fell back, gagging. Her jaws twitched, crunching a centipede between them. Anmar screamed.

Quiet, girl, Neferata hissed. Anmar’s jaw slammed shut and her hands flew to her mouth.

‘Leave her be, hag!’ Khaled snarled. He grabbed the end of the stake and jammed it deeper into her. Neferata’s withered frame shuddered. Her head slumped to the side and her staring eyes caught his, freezing him in place.

Why would I do that, Khaled? she said. Why would I do that when I am so thirsty?

Khaled pulled himself away from her. ‘No!’

So thirsty, Neferata said, not letting him break eye contact with her. Her will crashed down on him like a black wave. For weeks, her mind had wormed its way into his, even as it had Anmar’s. He had come incessantly to gloat over her, to speak of his dreams and plans and desires.

He wanted to be caliph, did young Khaled. But he was the son of a concubine and thus not in line for the throne, and besides, there were a dozen brothers ahead of him.

But I can change all of that, Khaled, she said, and he leaned close. You know I can. Abhorash told you, didn’t he? He told you what I am and what my kiss can give you, she continued. Her thoughts became his thoughts, and trapped his mind in a fog of red.

‘Khaled,’ Anmar quavered, reaching for him. ‘Please Khaled, close it…’

Free me, Neferata said. Free me!

‘Khaled…’

Khaled’s fingers tightened on the wood. Then, with a convulsive jerk, he ripped it free of her heart. Neferata sucked in a lungful of dry air and emitted a shriek, her long unused vocal cords flexing painfully. But mingled with the pain was the raw pleasure of life renewed. Life, so long denied her, flowed through her dry veins and she stretched, feeling the air and listening to the sound of her prey’s hearts as their rhythm sped up. The sweet smell of fear filled her nostrils and she hissed in pleasure.

Khaled stared stupidly at the splinter of wood in his hand, then up at Neferata. Her eyes blazed with a hunger long denied. ‘Yessss,’ she said.

‘Oh, no,’ Khaled said, stepping back, horror suffusing his features. ‘Anmar, get out of here!’

‘Khaled — what—’ Anmar began fearfully.

‘Run!’ Khaled screamed, lunging for Neferata with the wood. She uncoiled from the sarcophagus, leaping over him and landing between his sister and the door.

‘Too late, my Kontoi,’ Neferata rasped, claws flexing. She caught Anmar as the girl backpedalled. ‘Too late…’ Her fangs sank into the girl’s neck as savagely as those of a starving jackal. She worried the girl’s throat, tearing flesh and cracking bone, her tongue stabbing hungrily into the wound.

Khaled howled with loathing as he smashed the wooden spike into her shoulder. She snarled, dropping the half-dead girl, and batted his improvised weapon from his grip. Then, with sinister tenderness, she took his face in her hands and kissed him, smearing his mouth with his sister’s blood. He grabbed ineffectually at her wrists as she pulled him close.

‘Do not struggle, my love,’ she purred. ‘Soon you shall have all that you desire. This, I promise…’

The sun had been blotted out by thick clouds that spread like oil across the sky, as well as the surging, wheeling flocks of carrion birds that circled overhead waiting for the day’s reaping to be done. Unfortunately, Neferata had no time to admire the graceful curve of the birds’ flight.

The orc crested the palisade, venting a full-throated bellow of berserk murder-lust as it took off a Strigoi’s head with its crude axe. Neferata wove around the tumbling body and impaled the orc on her blade, causing it to stiffen and scream. She jerked her sword free in a crescent of blood and spun, lopping off its head as she came back around.

Even as its twitching carcass tumbled to the palisade ramp, more of them were pushing to fill the gap. Daubed in brutal, blue tattoos and war-paint and animal skins, they came at her in a rush. Their minds were too dull to enrapture with her dark skills, and she settled for dealing out quicksilver death. Stepping over the bodies, she saw that the others were faring similarly well.

Khaled, clad in the armour of one of Ushoran’s guard, cut and slashed in the wedge of metal and flesh that defended the master of Mourkain as he struggled with one of the warlords of the green horde that crashed like an ocean tide against his walls. Ushoran was wearing armour himself, eschewing his more bestial habits in order to play the hero for his people.

Like always when he was in public, Ushoran wore the face of a god. Painfully handsome, strongly built, he towered over his guards and at times, he seemed to be protecting them, rather than vice-versa. The orc was a large one, a full head taller than Ushoran. The beast wore the skins of a dozen wolves stretched and stitched over its frame, and carried a length of crudely beaten and sharpened bronze like a sword.

It whipped the sword at Ushoran, seeking to decapitate him. Ushoran stepped back, letting the curved tip of the blade slice past his chin. As the orc staggered, off-balance, he slid close and drove his own sword into the creature’s gut. It howled in agony and dropped its sword, grabbing Ushoran’s head in its paws. Ushoran was slammed down hard enough to crack the palisade, but he showed no sign that the impact had hurt him. He reached up and grabbed the orc’s tusk, jerking its head down. Their skulls connected with an audible crunch , and the orc staggered back, minus its tusk, which Ushoran still clutched.

The vampire sprang to his feet and lunged, jabbing the orc in the throat with its tusk, while simultaneously reaching for the hilt of his sword, still lodged in the orc’s belly. He jerked the sword free and swept it up, chopping the orc’s skull in half, jaw to brow. It toppled from the palisade, knocking a number of other green-skinned savages off in its descent.

He looked at her, his face a mask of blood, and grinned. He was enjoying the fight, she knew. ‘How heroic,’ she murmured, blocking a spear-thrust aimed at her heart. She flung out a hand and tore the orc’s throat out, even as she pivoted and hurled it behind her.

As Neferata turned she saw Abhorash leap from the palisade and chop down through the bull-neck of the giant that had steadily been trying to uproot a section of the palisade for the better part of the last hour. ‘Speaking of heroes,’ she murmured, grabbing an orc by the neck and shaking it hard enough to shatter its bones. She hurled it from the wall with a disgusted grimace as its foul blood splattered across the ornate cuirass she wore. Abhorash had been recalled from the eastern frontier, where he had been dealing with the ogre tribes that infested the hills there, and he had thrown himself into this new war with as much enthusiasm as he ever showed for anything.

He chopped at the giant’s neck as it staggered and fell, his sword rising and falling like a butcher’s knife, and his aquiline face was twisted into an expression of bestial exultation. Abhorash lived for battle. He had a will of iron, until the sky darkened with arrows and the soil ran with blood and then his savagery put even Ushoran’s to shame. She watched the decapitated giant sway on its feet before toppling forwards. It took the bigger ones a long time to realise that they were dead. She could practically hear W’soran’s greedy chuckle now. The giant, even headless, would make excellent labour for the mines.