Josh Reynolds - Neferata

‘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.’

‘Not you. You never liked him to begin with.’

‘Nothing good comes from men like that.’

‘Nothing good comes from men,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Lamashizzar, Alcadizzar, W’soran, Ushoran, Abhorash… Nagash .’ The last name was said in a bitter snarl. ‘All of them men and all fools and monsters. They seek to bind us to their destinies, as if we have none of our own. As if we should be thankful .’ She spat the last word. She looked at the river, her eyes dark and far away. ‘Our destiny is here, Naaima. Here in these cold stones. The dawi worship death, even as the people of the Great Land did, before Nagash — before we — perverted it. There is old death, old strength in the bones of the mountain and it is upon that strength that I shall build…’ She trailed off.

‘Build what?’ Naaima said.

Neferata spun. ‘How many wolves did we bring?’

‘What?’

The bullet took Naaima in the shoulder, crunching through her pauldron and shoulder joint alike and spinning her around and off her feet. Neferata made to grab her, but too late. Naaima plummeted off the bluff. The ice shattered at the point of impact and the vampire slipped into the dark water.

The wolves she had seen before had shed their reeking skins, revealing the squat shapes of a number of dwarfs, who’d been wearing them. One was recognisable, even at a distance and with his beard turned silver. Orc tusks and rat skulls still dangled in his beard, though more than the last time she had seen the ranger called Ratcatcher. He grinned at her and tossed aside a long-barrelled fire-stick to one of his men as another was shoved into his hand. He took aim and fired even as Neferata leapt from the bluff after Naaima.

The rangers had been waiting for them. That was the only thing that made sense. They had been waiting for them to eventually stumble across the river. Days, weeks, months — she knew that none of it would have mattered to the taciturn and eccentric Ratcatcher. There was no guarantee that the rangers had even been in the mountain when they’d attacked.

Neferata hit the water not far from where Naaima had crashed through. She plunged into all-encompassing darkness. The cold wreathed her bones, and though it did not bother her, she could feel it. The blood pumping through her limbs turned sluggish and she caught the sharp, familiar tang of Naaima’s blood floating on the current. Like a shark, Neferata arrowed downwards, following the scent of her handmaiden.

Even for one who could see in complete darkness, the depths of the river were near impenetrable. Neferata was forced to rely on her other senses. When she felt the brush of a flailing hand, she latched on to the attached wrist and began to swim for the surface. It was an instinct, to seek succour on the surface. Neither she nor Naaima had a need to breathe, nor did the glacial current hamper them. Regardless, Naaima’s body was dead weight.