Josh Reynolds - Neferata

Neferata hauled Naaima up until they collided with the ice. Neferata punched through it with a single blow, driving her fist up into the open air. Using her shoulder and elbow, she widened the hole and forced an opening big enough to accommodate them both. Naaima gasped like a beached fish, and blood spurted and sizzled in the hole in her shoulder. A foul-smelling steam issued from the wound and Neferata gagged. ‘What—’ she began.

‘Burns,’ Naaima gasped. ‘It burns!’

Neferata drove her fingers into the wound and shrieked as something as hot as any fire caressed her fingertips. Steeling herself, she plucked the offending object from the wound. It was a lead ball, shot through with veins of silver. She growled and hurled it away.

‘Silver, blood-hag,’ a voice called out. She looked up and saw a firing line of dwarfs trudging across the ice towards them. All carried the long fire-sticks and had great two-handed axes strapped to their backs. Ratcatcher was chewing on a lit fuse, and a stinking tendril of smoke wafted up around his head. ‘You can thank Grund for that, the sad bastard. He saw how you blood-drinkers shrivelled around it. And if there’s one thing the Karaz has plenty of, it’s a pretty bit o’ shine.’ Ratcatcher let the fire-stick swing off his shoulder and he dipped his head, touching the hissing fuse clenched between his blackened teeth to its back.

The fire-stick roared and Neferata was hit by a hammer-blow that took her off her feet. She landed on her back on the ice and heard it crack beneath her. The silver-threaded ball burned through her arm and she gasped as she tore at the wound. The ball fell out and rolled across the ice, steaming and bloody.

The dwarfs had stopped some distance away. Ratcatcher was unhurriedly reloading, even as he continued to speak. ‘The engineers call ’em handguns. Don’t trust them myself, but I must admit they’re a mite handy when it comes to this sort of thing.’ He looked at her. ‘Quite a few dead ones you brought with you. They might have made a mess if they’d got in. Lucky we figured you’d try this eventually.’ He chuckled. ‘We’ve got a bit of a surprise waiting for them, don’t you worry. You won’t go into the darkness alone.’

Neferata heaved herself to her feet. She heard a sound like the growling of a pack of leopards and Ratcatcher made a gesture like a man hearing a familiar melody. ‘The boys got a bit eager there, but no matter.’ He tapped the side of his hooked nose. ‘Artillery crews are like beardlings — give ’em a target and they just can’t resist firing.’

His eyes narrowed to cruel slits. ‘You shouldn’t have killed Razek, blood-drinker. He was my friend. And you definitely shouldn’t have tried to take my mountain.’ He aimed his handgun. ‘Back to the shadows with you, witch.’

‘Why don’t we go together, ranger?’ Neferata said. Still crouched, she raised her fists and smashed them down with every ounce of strength her immortal frame possessed. The crack was small at first, but then the ice ripped with a sound like a melon being chopped in half. Cracks spread outwards from the point of her fists’ impact, zigzagging across the surface of the frozen river. The rangers scattered in surprise, but they could not outrun the cracks.

Neferata pulled Naaima to her feet as the ice slipped and shifted beneath them. Together, the two vampires dived into the freezing waters. Neferata arrowed herself towards the struggling dwarfs, who were sinking like stones. With her teeth bared she swam downwards towards Ratcatcher, who sank in a cloud of bubbles. He saw her coming and his eyes widened. His movements were slow and awkward as he clawed for a weapon, his eyes bulging.

She hit him like a bolt thrown from a ballista and tore him in two. The dwarf spun aside in two directions, leaving a cloud of blood in both wakes. She pushed herself around, watching Naaima dart around the other dwarfs like an eel, tearing out throats or opening bellies with every graceful pass. The water became thick with dark clouds and Neferata inhaled the heady brew before pushing herself towards the surface.

‘What now?’ Naaima said, rubbing her chest. The wound had healed, but she still looked pained. The sound of artillery had fallen silent. Whether that implied that the dwarfs had blown her forces back to whatever hell had spawned them or that they themselves had fallen, she couldn’t say. Nor, in truth, did she care. She looked back at the river and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

‘Now we follow the river,’ Neferata said. ‘But first, we gather the others.’

When they rejoined the others, it became obvious that the dwarf ambush had been unsurprisingly effective for all that it had been a suicide mission. Layla trotted towards them, dragging a dying dwarf by his foot and leaving a trail of red across the snow. ‘This wasn’t the only ambush,’ she said. ‘Not according to this one,’ she added, tossing the dwarf at Neferata’s feet.

The dwarf glared at them blankly, pink bubbles gathering on his lips as snow collected on his twitching form. Neferata kicked him over onto his face and sighed. ‘How many of you survived?’

‘Most of us, my queen— Sabula was shredded, the slow-witted cow, and Lodi as well. We are maybe a dozen strong now.’ Layla gestured to the smoking piles of shattered bone and smouldering armour. ‘And our escort fared even worse.’

‘They would only have slowed us down in any event,’ Neferata said. ‘Gather the others. We will proceed.’

‘Should we inform the Strigoi of the ambush?’ Layla said.

‘Oh, I’m quite certain that they already know,’ Neferata said, smiling crookedly. ‘In fact, I’m quite certain that a certain Arabyan princeling was hoping for just this sort of occurrence.’

‘Redzik’s scouts couldn’t have missed it,’ Naaima said, frowning. ‘The rangers perhaps, but the guns — never.’ She looked at Neferata. ‘Humiliation isn’t enough for that one, is it?’

‘Oh no, he wants me dead, my faithful Kontoi.’ Neferata licked her fingers and rubbed a smudge of blood from Layla’s face. ‘He knows that eventually I will worm my way out of this trap, as I have every other, and that when I do, I will come for him and his ending will be most unpleasant.’ She looked at the devastation caused by the ambush and nodded. ‘Let him think he succeeded, however.’ She looked at them and her eyes lit on Rasha. Something like satisfaction filled her and she pointed to the former nomad. ‘Rasha, you and Layla will stay here. Khaled is certain to send out search parties to ensure our deaths.’

‘And you want us to make sure they find nothing?’ Rasha said, flashing her fangs. ‘Just like the old days, my lady.’

‘Indeed. Messengers as well,’ Neferata said. She looked up the sky, where the snow’s incessant tumble had slowed somewhat. ‘The blizzard is lessening its hold. See that none of the messengers that either Khaled or Morath send out reach Mourkain.’

‘What game are we playing now, Neferata?’ Naaima murmured as the two vampires ran off.

‘The same one as always, sweet Naaima. The only game that matters,’ Neferata said.

Neferata lounged on the divan on the deck of the black ark, stirring the wine in her goblet with a finger. Khaled and Anmar stood behind her, their hands on their weapons and their eyes watchful. The druchii slave-master examined the line of shivering, weeping people, occasionally lifting a chin with the butt of a coiled whip.

‘They are pathetic,’ the white-haired elf woman lying on the divan across from Neferata said.