Josh Reynolds - Neferata

His face hardened, but only for a moment. His shoulders slumped. ‘We must speak on this.’ He looked at her.

She inclined her head. ‘Pull back what forces remain to you, King Borri. Neferata of Lahmia will see that you have the time you require,’ she said haughtily. His guard surrounded him protectively as wailing war-horns signalled for retreat. The dwarf throng, what was left of it, was in full flight. The dead did not pursue. Instead they paused on the stairs in serried, silent ranks, staring ahead as their enemies retreated. A Strigoi — Dragoj, she thought — made to follow Borri’s retreating retinue and she stepped in front of him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Let them go.’

‘Are you mad?’ Dragoj snarled, his eyes bright with bloodlust. ‘We have them here, we must—’ He stopped abruptly and looked down at the sword-tip sprouting from his chest. ‘What?’ he gurgled as he reached out with a trembling finger to touch the blade.

Neferata’s reply was a swing of Grund’s axe. Dragoj’s head bounced across the stones, the startled expression still on his face. As his body slumped, she met Iona’s dark gaze. ‘Hello, little she-wolf,’ she said. The broken hafts of crossbow bolts protruded from Iona’s armour and body alike.

‘We have them,’ she said.

‘All of them?’

‘Save those few who are with Khaled. The rest are ours.’ Iona grinned. ‘They never even suspected until our blades were cutting their hamstrings.’

‘Kill them. All of them, and strip the fangs from their skulls. Ushoran will not fail to understand that message.’ Neferata paused, and then went on. ‘But first…’ She looked towards the temples. ‘First we must bring this to an end.’

She met with Naaima and the others on the edge of the last landing. The dead waited in patient ranks about them. ‘Where’s Morath?’ Neferata said. She still clutched Grund’s axe in her hands.

Naaima waved a hand towards the ranks of the dead. ‘He’s exhausted. I left him with Varna. She knows not to hurt him,’ she added quickly, before Neferata could protest. Neferata looked at her remaining handmaidens. She had entered with eleven, but only six remained. Of those, only two had accompanied Naaima. The others were busy with the Strigoi, and the screams echoed hellishly over the Deeping Stair.

Neferata ignored the noise. ‘We go. I want to see if our brave Kontoi managed to accomplish the task I set for him,’ she said.

‘What of the dead?’ Naaima said.

‘What of them?’ Neferata said, starting down the stairs. ‘Let them stay as they are, to remind the dwarfs that there is no escape. Borri can’t have more than a hundred warriors left, and most of those will be wounded. No. We’ve won. Let us be graceful in victory,’ she continued. Naaima and the others hurried after her.

It wasn’t until they drew closer to the temples that they heard the screams. They were not the wails of frightened women and children. Instead, they were the full-throated howls of men driven past the breaking point. Weapons rattled and the howls of corpse-wolves echoed through the streets of the temple district.

Neferata cursed. She broke into a run, her sword in her hand. The four vampires sped through the streets towards the sounds, and Neferata’s curses degenerated into shrieks of rage as she saw that Khaled had indeed accomplished his task, and more besides.

The refugees had not reached safety. Khaled and Zandor had been quicker than the dwarfs, and the latter had paid for it. Neferata stalked into the plaza in front of the temple of Valaya. It was carpeted with the bodies of slain. Little bodies, some of them, impossibly little; and something in Neferata curdled and she was once more in Lahmia, watching as the soldiers of Rasetra and Khemri and Lybaras snatched Lahmian children from their wailing mothers and swung them by their ankles against the walls of houses.

Borri and his men had obviously arrived too late to rescue any of their loved ones. Instead they had been met by the silent menace of the tortured spirit-hosts drawn from the bodies of the dead. The ghosts of women and children and dead warriors swept across the great plaza, surrounding an imposing structure which Neferata thought must be the temple to either Grimnir or Grungni.

‘They ran in there, the little fools,’ Khaled said. ‘Then, who can blame them, eh?’

Neferata spun. Khaled sat on a dwarf cart, his mouth and chest wet with blood. His gloves were soaked in it and he smiled at her. He cut his eyes to the spirit-host and licked his lips. ‘You weren’t the only one who learned from Morath. I was quite the connoisseur of such things, before… Well.’ He gestured to himself. Neferata caught sight of Anmar behind him, and Zandor. Redzik was there was as well, and four other Strigoi. Dead wolves prowled among the corpses and slobbering ghouls squabbled over the choice bits.

‘What have you done?’ Neferata hissed.

Khaled hopped to his feet. ‘What I was commanded to do, by my master,’ he snarled. He pointed at her. ‘What you were commanded to do!’

‘No one commands me,’ she said. ‘Not Nagash, not Ushoran and certainly not you, princeling!’

‘I told you,’ Zandor spat. ‘I told you she couldn’t be trusted. Kill her, Arabyan!’

Khaled hesitated, his expression shifting.

‘Ushoran is not here, Khaled,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘Can you feel his influence? I cannot. He has no power here. He cannot command us.’

Khaled looked at her. Anmar hurried to his side. ‘Brother, if she’s right—’

‘Quiet,’ Khaled snapped. ‘I need to think, I—’

‘No! No more thinking, no more talk!’ Zandor snarled. He leapt for Neferata as the other Strigoi converged on Naaima and the others. As Zandor crashed against her, the doors to the great temple where Borri and his remaining men had retreated boomed open and off their hinges, shattering the stillness of the mountain.

A maggot-infested wolf bounded towards the opening and was crushed by an expertly wielded hammer. A shorn-scalped dwarf stepped into view, his hair and beard shaved. His eyes were wild and red-rimmed. He held his hammer in one hand as he tore feverishly at the clasps of his armour.

Another dwarf, similarly shaved and bare-chested, followed. Then another and another, dozens, the last survivors of Karaz Bryn, their beards shaved and oaths to Grimnir on their tongues as they discarded their armour with ritualistic contempt. Some had daubed strange markings on their flesh in soot and blood and the eerie dirge that swept from them chilled even Neferata’s heart.

She knew then that there would be no surrender. No mercy.

‘What—?’ Zandor began, staring at them in shock. His hands hung limply around Neferata’s neck. ‘Are they mad?’

‘Yes,’ Neferata said, and rammed her fist through his chest. Zandor screamed in shock and pain as her fingers sought his heart. She seized it and jerked it free of his chest. The Strigoi staggered back. Neferata crushed his heart before his disbelieving eyes. ‘I told you to remember my hand on your heart, Zandor,’ she hissed.

Zandor lunged with an inarticulate cry and Neferata brought Grund’s axe up and buried it in the Strigoi’s skull as he knocked her to the ground. Before she could get up Khaled’s sword sank through the meat of her thigh, pinning her leg to the floor. She screamed. Her scream was echoed by the dwarfs as they charged forwards to meet the ghosts and ghouls and dead warriors that sprang into action at Khaled’s barked order. The dead and the suicidal crashed together like opposing ocean waves, and hymns to Grimnir buffeted her ears as she grabbed for the sword.

‘No,’ Khaled said, stepping back, his expression torn between satisfaction and disgust. ‘No. You won’t wriggle free of this trap.’