Josh Reynolds - Neferata

The panorama of the Worlds Edge Mountains spread out around her, vast and uncaring of the war begun in its depths. Above, the sky was the colour of tar and the snow spiralled down like tears. She reached out, setting her talons on the horizon, even as she had done as a girl, visualising what would be hers. With a grunt, she drew her hand back. Tossing her head, she brushed her windblown hair out of her eyes and spotted the black shape of a river slithering out away from the mountain. She smiled.

Khaled and Anmar joined her a moment later. ‘We destroyed the pipes and devices. This thing is no threat now,’ Khaled said.

‘Oh, well done, dog of Mourkain,’ Neferata said. ‘You do your master proud.’

Khaled grabbed her arm. ‘I would have done the same for you if you had let me,’ he said. ‘I would have served you forever,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.

‘You serve none but your own lusts, my Kontoi. I saw that clearly in Bel Aliad, before I first kissed you,’ Neferata said, placing her fingers along his cheek. ‘And I will acknowledge no desire save my own.’ Her claws scraped his face, opening the flesh to the kiss of the cold wind. Khaled stepped back, releasing her. His eyes hardened.

‘Ushoran says different,’ he sneered, gesturing to her throat.

Neferata smiled softly and licked his blood from her fingers. ‘What he says and what you hear are two different things, my sweet, savage, sad son. And that you never saw that is one of the reasons why I am glad to be rid of your tedious love.’

Khaled snarled, but Neferata turned away and leapt off the tower. She dropped into the snow and started back down.

The dwarfs did not remain idle after the failure of their dragon-weapon. Neferata soon found herself wishing that they had, if only to provide respite from the dangerous tedium that followed. Two weeks passed in the wake of the dwarfs’ flight into the lower regions of their realm, but, like all vermin, they refused to stay in their holes.

Instead, they had displayed the unguessed intricacies of their craftsmanship. There were apparently innumerable hidden passageways and concealed doors and the dwarfs had sallied forth three times in strength, pummelling the dead before retreating into their hidden enclaves. Others had crept from unseen points to set off explosions and fire crossbows into the vampires and ghouls. They had already lost four of the Strigoi vampires to such tactics, and the remaining warriors were becoming unsettled and impatient. When not fending off these attacks, Neferata and the Strigoi passed the time in fruitless debate.

‘There must be more than one way in,’ Morath said testily. He looked half-dead, and weird lights flickered beneath his skin. He sagged in his saddle. The stink of exhaustion seeped from his pores.

‘There are a number of ways in. Finding them, however, is another matter,’ Neferata said, resting on her haunches, her chin pressed to the pommel of her sword, her fingers draped over the hilt. It was not the most regal position, but it suited her mood. She stared out at the blizzard.

‘Who says we have to find them, eh?’ Zandor said. ‘We just set those bone-bags we brought with us to chipping away at this anthill until we make a passage.’

‘Do you have any concept of how much power and time that would require?’ Morath snapped. ‘No, of course you don’t.’

Zandor growled at the necromancer, his normally handsome features lengthening into something lupine. ‘Watch your tone, meat, or I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’ Neferata said, without turning from the snow. ‘In case you had forgotten, Zandor, I require Morath’s services more than yours, indispensible as they are.’

‘And you’ll hold your tongue, witch,’ Zandor said, grinning at her in a lopsided fashion. ‘You’re only here because Ushoran still professes to respect your abilities. But if you give us trouble—’

‘Your head will be the first to touch the dust,’ Anmar said, tapping Zandor’s throat with the flat of her sword. The other Strigoi snarled like a pack of dogs. Neferata’s handmaidens drew closer to her. She herself neither moved, nor paid attention to the ongoing confrontation.

‘Quiet!’ Khaled roared. He looked at Neferata. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘The river,’ Neferata said. ‘The river is the way in. It travels beneath the mountain.’

Morath’s eyes lit up with realisation. ‘It might be possible, yes. A small group, no more than a hundred,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘No. No it won’t work. My abilities are great, but the strain…’

‘Not you. Me,’ Neferata said, rising to her feet.

‘Your grasp of the necessary magics is incomplete,’ Morath said slowly.

‘Then complete it,’ Neferata said. ‘Teach me, Morath. You will find me a most apt pupil…’

‘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?’