Josh Reynolds - Neferata

In comparison, bringing the newly dead to their feet was as nothing. The dwarfs stirred, ruined mail scratching across stone. She inhaled the strange sickly-sweet scent of over-ripened life. Bloody fingers twitched and heels drummed on the floor. Eyelids peeled back from poached-egg eyes and as one, with a groan, the dead sat up. Gripping their weapons with slack necessity, the dead dwarfs turned as a mass towards Borri’s battleline.

The dirge, when it came, was something of a surprise: a collective song of mourning, slipping from the mouths of every dwarf still breathing. Neferata watched as the dwarfs faced their dead kin, singing their sad slow song, and she felt a moment of what might have been respect. There was no fear there, only sadness. The song rose in volume until the very stones seemed to reverberate with its rhythm.

The passage of the dead beat out the flames. Still, beards and braids caught alight, wreathing the zombies in halos of flame as they stumbled towards their former companions in a grim parody of martial discipline. Neferata heard the Strigoi howling in mockery and disgust filled her. This was a necessity, not a pleasure. In another, better world, the dawi would have been her allies. She glanced at Morath, noting the flat expression on his face.

The necromancer liked this no better than she, she knew. They were both prisoners of Ushoran’s madness, though Morath had chosen that fate willingly. She had offered him a place, and he had turned away out of loyalty to an ideal. ‘I could have been your queen,’ she murmured. Morath looked at her.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, necromancer. Stay back and leave the fighting to those with the thirst for it.’ Neferata trotted after the dwarf dead. She drank in the swirling winds of dark magic as she moved, using it to abate the thirst she felt. She felt her features stretch and sharpen and her muscles harden. She broke into a sprint as the first of the zombies connected with the dwarf battle-line. Others joined her — the Strigoi, shadowed by her own handmaidens, and around them, the war-ghouls of W’soran’s devising, their mammoth tread shaking the floor as they roared out unintelligible challenges to the enemy.

The two forces connected with a thunderclap. The dead were a wave washing over the rock that was the defenders of Karaz Bryn. Dwarfs fell, pulled down by the hands of their fellows or crushed by the hammers of the war-ghouls. Neferata bounded from the ground to a ghoul’s thigh and then off one of the great statues that stood sentinel over the stairs, landing near Borri. She had to force the king to flee. The Strigoi followed her like a pack of ravening hounds, avoiding the press of the fighting in order to reach the king and his guard.

Borri saw her in the instant before she reached him. He pivoted, nearly slicing her nose off with the axe, and then followed up with the hammer he wielded in his other hand, knocking her off her feet. She rolled beneath the feet of the attacking Strigoi as they flung themselves at the king’s guard with bestial abandon. Claws and swords clashed with ancient armour and ancestral hammers and the iron wall of dawi guards disintegrated into a melee within a melee.

Borri’s hammer shattered a Strigoi’s snarling face, sending the vampire hurtling backwards. Neferata ducked under the flailing body and brought her sword around, locking blade to haft with Borri’s hammer. He grunted as he realised her strength and crossed the hammer with the axe, glaring at her between them. ‘Treachery,’ he said. ‘You manlings know nothing but treachery.’

‘War,’ Neferata corrected. ‘Your son understood that.’

‘Razek had many faults,’ Borri said, shoving her back a step. Sweat coated his beard and ran down his seamed face. ‘That does not give you the right to insult him.’

Neferata redoubled her efforts. ‘Surrender, great king, and this can all end. Your son had to die, but your people do not,’ she said.

‘You truly know nothing of us,’ Borri said. His wrists bulged and suddenly the sword was ripped from her hands. The axe struck sparks from the collar and she cursed herself for underestimating the king. If he would not retreat willingly, she would have to force him. With a roar, she threw herself back, allowing two Strigoi who had been circling the fight to leap on the king and bear him down. Borri fell, bellowing in anger.

Neferata scrambled to her feet as those of the king’s guards not already engaged rushed to his aid. Hammers forced the Strigoi back, and a great crest of hair parted the warriors swirling around the king. Grund burst through the press, driving an elbow into a Strigoi’s mouth, shattering fangs.

He roared and chopped down, severing the other Strigoi’s leg at the thigh. The vampire shrilled and fell on top of the burly dwarf. Grund shoved the vampire aside and crushed its skull with his fist. He hacked at it wildly for good measure before turning to face her. ‘I said I’d have your head, witch, and I’ve only ever broken one oath,’ he roared.

‘Grund—’ Borri coughed as his men pulled him to his feet.

‘No!’ Grund snarled. ‘She’s mine, brother. Come, hag! Come, night-stalker! Fight me!’

Neferata wasted no words on the berserker. She didn’t want to kill Borri yet, but this creature would be better off dead. She stepped back, channelling the dark energies that invigorated her as Morath had showed her. She spat a stream of syllables and her eyes crackled with energy, which immediately burst forth in twin bolts. Grund swung his axe up and the energy flared, leaving char-marks on the flat of the blade. For a moment, as it steamed, she could see the tell-tale curl of runes.

Grund lowered the axe and grinned. He raced towards her. She stepped aside, avoiding the seemingly heedless charge, but not his hand as it snapped out and grabbed her hair. Grund set his feet and yanked her down and around, sending her crashing to the floor.

With one foot planted on her back, he raised his axe. Neferata scrabbled for her sword, which had fallen just out of her reach. Neferata’s fingers dug grooves in the stone as she tried to shake him loose but it was as if the mountain itself was holding her in place. Grund wanted her head and it looked as if he intended to have it.

As the axe fell, she squirmed beneath him and rolled onto her back. Her palms slapped tight on the axe. There was silver in it and her hands blistered as she strained against whatever magics had gone into crafting the blade. With a stifled snarl, she pulled it out of his grip and Grund, off balance, fell off her. His eyes bugged out and he screamed at her and lunged, fingers hooked like claws.

With a snarl of her own, she let the blade slide through her hands and grabbed the haft, swinging as her palms touched the leather bound tight around the wood. The axe chopped into the mad dwarf’s skull, bisecting his berserk features. He hurtled past her and fell. Neferata rose slowly to her feet. Borri was on his feet, his eyes solemn as he took in the body. ‘It was a good death. Your debt is discharged, brother,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘Yours is not.’

‘You are a hard people,’ Neferata said, looking at his guards. They were in the eye of the battle. Dwarfs fought grimly around them, trying to hold back the inevitable for just a few seconds more.

Borri spat a wad of blood and sputum at her feet. ‘We endure,’ he said.

‘Not for long.’ She looked past Borri. ‘Your people are in a place that I may not be able to enter,’ she said, gesturing to the temple of Valaya across the span of the bridge. ‘But reach them I will. I will butcher them, King of Karaz Bryn, your rinn and beardlings. Unless you surrender.’

Borri glared at her silently. She stepped forwards, ignoring the weapons of his guards. She stretched out a hand. ‘Your hold is lost, King. But a hold can be replaced. Can your people? What debt do you owe them, as king? Is dying here the way they expected that debt to be paid?’